The Adventuress (5 page)

“I assure you, Miss Wells, I mean nothing of the sort.” He gave her a neat bow before placing a firm hand on Jeremy's shoulder and steering him out onto the terrace through the French doors at the front of the dining room. Before they crossed the threshold, he turned back to me. “Emily, will you see to things?” He nodded subtly in Amity's direction.

The Wells parents were now standing in a corner, facing away from the group, apparently having given up on delivering the unhappy news to their daughter. I marched over to her. “A word, Amity?”

“After breakfast, Emily. Why are you being so uncivilized?”

“It cannot wait, I'm afraid.”

“If you know something about what Jeremy did last night, I have no desire to hear it. So far as I am concerned, there are some things a gentleman should be allowed to keep private.”

I wrenched her up from her seat and dragged her away from the table. “I have no interest in what Jeremy may or may not have done on any evening. This concerns another matter entirely. Mr. Neville was found dead last night—in your fiancé's suite. Colin is giving Jeremy the news now.”

“In Jeremy's room? How is this possible?” Amity's eyes swam with tears. “Was he ill?”

“I do not at present know the cause of death.”

“How can I help?” She dabbed at her eyes with a dainty lace handkerchief and stood up straight, her shoulders back. “We must arrange for new rooms for Jeremy at once, of course, but my father would be better suited to that task than I. Has anyone notified the family?”

“So far as I know he did not have any,” I said. “Perhaps you could speak to Jeremy about how best to proceed. He will need you, Amity.”

“What a grim task,” Amity said. Colin returned inside and motioned to her. She went straight to her fiancé.

“Have you seen Mr. Fairchild yet?” I asked Colin.

“Yes, I stopped at his room on my way down. He took it very badly.”

“As have we all,” I said.

News of the death was quickly making the rounds through the hotel guests, as evident from the curious stares pointed in our direction from every corner of the dining room, and this was unsettling to our group. To all, that is, except Augustus Wells, who showed not the slightest concern at the turn of events. He had plowed through his breakfast and was now reading the newspaper with utter disregard for everything going on around him. I was about to admonish him when I caught a glimpse of two extremely serious-looking men striding through the lobby. Assuming (correctly) that they were from the coroner's office, I took the opportunity to slip away and hailed the men just after they had exited the hotel.

“You are here to investigate Mr. Neville's death?” I asked in French, standing beneath the columned porte cochère, where liveried porters bustled by with the luggage they had removed from carriages.

“You are French?” the taller of the men asked.

“No, English.”

“But with a very good accent, madame,” he said. “We are dealing with the matter of Monsieur Neville's death. If you were acquainted with the young man, I convey my deepest condolences.”

“Thank you. We are all most distressed. My husband tells me the hotel doctor suspects overindulgence?”

“I am afraid it was nothing of the sort, madame. It was obvious to us at once that the man died after consuming poison. You must understand that hotel doctors always prefer to find something that will not raise any sort of scandal.”

“Of course. Do you know what sort of poison?”

“Not yet, madame, but you should not trouble yourself with such unsettling details. Again, my deepest condolences to the duke and the rest of your party.” He tipped his hat, muttered something to his companion, and walked away.

*   *   *

“Poison?” Mrs. Wells clutched at her neck and rose from her dining chair, sending her empty breakfast plate clattering to the floor, from whence it was collected by the same waiter who had earlier fetched food from the buffet for Augustus.

“Do try to keep your voice down, Mrs. Wells,” Colin said.

“What a terrible thing,” she said. “To have sunk so low as to believe there is no hope to be found except in death.”

“It is tragic indeed,” Colin said. “Bainbridge tells me Neville's only family is an older brother who moved to Australia more than a decade ago. They did not keep in touch. We think it would be best for the funeral and burial to be held here.”

“Is there no one else we should contact?” Mr. Wells asked.

“I am afraid not. Neville's closest friends are Bainbridge and Fairchild, and they are both already here. He was not the sort of man who would want a fuss made over him.”

“I shall ask the concierge to assist with the details,” Mr. Wells said. “Am I correct in assuming that we should like the service to take place as soon as the body is released?”

“Yes,” Colin said. “That would be best.”

“Em, darling, may I have a word?” Jeremy came up behind me and spoke quietly, his face grey and his hands shaking. He had left Amity with Margaret and Cécile at another table, away from the others in our group's section of the dining room. They appeared to be chatting amicably, but I could read the tension on my friends' faces.

“Of course.” I followed him to an alcove in the main lobby. “I am so very sorry, Jeremy—”

“Do you know what they are saying about his death? What they think happened? Suicide? I don't believe it for a second, Em.”

“Why not?”

“Neville wasn't the despondent sort. Quite the contrary. Yes, he was quiet, but not in a depressed sort of way. I should have described him as the most perfectly content man of my acquaintance. This is not like him.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I should have noticed there was something wrong and stopped him.”

“Stopped him? Jeremy, how could you have known what he was contemplating? You said yourself he wasn't despondent.”

“He went to my rooms for a reason. He may have wanted to discuss something of critical importance, and when he didn't find me…”

“This is not your fault, Jeremy.” I took his hands in mine.

“I left him alone to die.”

“You did not know he was there.”

“When I came in last night and was about to ask for my key at the desk, I stopped, because I saw that there was only one hanging on the hook beneath my room number. There ought to have been two, as I am not sharing the room. To be quite frank with you, I worried that Amity had the other and was waiting for me.”

“Waiting for you? In your rooms?”

“Do not take that tone with me, Em,” he said, his eyes darting as he watched a pack of louder-than-usual guests crossing the lobby. “It is most unbecoming. For a moment I had the misfortune of feeling as if I were attempting to confide in your mother.”

“But waiting in your rooms? I am all astonishment, Jeremy.”

“The thing is, Em, so was I,” he said. “I never would have entertained such a notion if I hadn't had quite so much to drink. Instead of going upstairs, I went back out. That is why I only returned this morning. Of course, it turned out Neville had requested a key the previous night, and the desk clerk told me they had given it to him as I had told the staff on two occasions earlier in the week that he might have access to my room whenever he wanted. Had I been in a more lucid frame of mind, I would have assumed it was he, not Amity, who had the key, and I would have gone straight to my room, and then I could have—I might have—”

“Jeremy.” I gently placed my hand on his cheek. “No matter what you did or did not do last night, you are not responsible for Mr. Neville's actions.”

“I cannot tell Amity any of this. What would she think?”

“She would not blame you. She might, however, wonder where you slept,” I said. He looked at the floor. “Where did you sleep?”

“I believe I am entitled to some secrets, am I not?”

I hardly knew how to respond. My mind reeled, but I managed (I believe) to maintain my composure. “What made you think Amity would have gone to your rooms?”

“Nothing specific, Em, and in hindsight the idea seems preposterous in the extreme. You won't tell her, will you? She would despise me on two counts: first, for having entertained the notion that she would have such low morals, and second, for not having saved my friend.”

“I can agree with you, but only on the first count. Really, Jeremy, to think such a thing! No unmarried lady, no matter how modern she may be, would ever wait unaccompanied in a gentleman's hotel room.”

“I do recall a time in Vienna when you insisted I leave you alone in Hargreaves's rooms to wait for him, and that was before you were married.”

“That was entirely different. To begin with, his rooms were not in a hotel.” I could feel heat rising in my face. “In the midst of a murder investigation it is sometimes necessary to strain the bonds of propriety. Oh, never mind. I shall not torment you with it any further. The loss of Mr. Neville is a terrible blow, and I am here, as your friend, to offer any comfort that I can. Anything you need, you have only to ask.”

“Thank you, Em. I never could do without you.”

*   *   *

Mr. Neville's funeral was a depressing affair. Out of the fifty guests Mr. and Mrs. Wells had hosted in Cannes, only a handful of us stayed on to attend the service, which was held at the Eglise Saint-Georges, built in honor of Queen Victoria's son, Leopold, the Duke of Albany, who had died in Cannes in 1884. The rest of the group departed, many of them making no attempt to hide the fact that they were merely decamping to Nice, where, they believed, the society would not be so grim. Mr. Neville's shyness had kept many of the party from getting to know him, and they had felt nothing but discomfort at the news of his death. After the burial, Mrs. Wells hosted a subdued tea, where we all told stories about the deceased. No one there could doubt how deeply Mr. Neville's loss had affected his friends or have come away without admiring the man even more than they previously had.

“I hate funerals,” Colin said later that afternoon, as we walked along La Croisette, doing our best to ignore a misty rain that seemed all too appropriate for the day. “Do remember, when the time comes, what I have told you in the past about pyres, will you?” He gripped my arm tighter and cleared his throat. “Bainbridge says he doesn't want to go back to England right away, and asks if we will stay on as well. I told him we would, of course. Mrs. Wells has abandoned all ideas of her party, although I can tell she mourns the loss of her fireworks more than that of Neville.”

“To be fair, she hardly knew him, and although it is wickedly unjust, she blames him for taking away a piece of her daughter's happiness,” I said. “Jeremy blames himself, you know.”

“That is not unusual in cases such as this,” Colin said. “None of us thought Neville was unsound of mind. I suspected nothing of the sort. If anything, he proved himself a steadying influence on Bainbridge time and time again.”

“What happened that night at the casino? Do you remember anything that might have sent him careening over the edge?”

“I did not stay long, but while I was there it was the usual sort of thing. Conspicuous consumption of whisky and champagne, excellent cigars, a bit of gambling.”

“Why did you leave so early?”

“I missed you.” He squeezed my hand and we stopped walking. The benches lining La Croisette were too damp to sit on. I rested a gloved hand on the railing above the sandy beach as Colin leaned against it, carefully holding his umbrella so that the rain would not fall on me.

“I know you say that, and it is not that I doubt your veracity, but I do know you so very well, Colin. There is something more.”

“Suffice it to say that I do not share all of the vices of my friends,” he said.

“Meaning?” I raised an eyebrow and stared at him without blinking.

“Nothing that matters, Emily.” He looked away, turning toward the sea.

“Pretty young things sent to entertain the lot of you?”

His body stiffened. “You should not discuss such things. It is unseemly.”

“Perhaps, but it is also correct.”

“You may think whatever you like.” He tilted his hat back on his head.

“Amity mentioned to me that her father had brought dancers down from Paris.”

“He told her that?” The umbrella swayed, but he steadied it at once.

“Perish the thought. She overheard him speaking to Jeremy about it and she found it riotously amusing.”

“She did?” His dark eyes widened.

“I am not certain she understands that such women are, on occasion, called upon to do more than dance.”

“Emily!”

“Just how naïve do you think I am?”

“Far more naïve than you are, apparently. It was nothing like that, I assure you. They were strictly there to dance.”

“Yet you left?” I asked.

“I assumed that staying on would have offended your delicate sensibilities. Had you seen the dancers in question, I am certain you would agree.”

I sighed. “I am not so judgmental, you know. I have never objected to you—”

“Emily!”

“It is just that Amity is so very … modern, I suppose one could say. She has made a concerted effort to persuade Jeremy that he will not have to abandon any of his bachelor ways after their wedding. I am half-convinced it is how she managed to catch him. I do hope you are not left regretting your own choice of wife. I never thought of myself as boring and conventional until now.”

Colin laughed. “My dear, dear girl, you are anything but boring and conventional, and I must correct your mistakes. First, allowing one's husband to occasionally be entertained by cabaret dancers is hardly modern. In Paris, wives accompany their husbands to the Moulin Rouge. I have just never found the experience particularly enticing.”