A Brazen Curiosity, page 20
part #1 of Beatrice Hyde-Clare Series
His friend responded with a heavy sigh and drooped his shoulders even more.
Lady Skeffington, seeming to bear Mrs. Otley no ill will for her husband’s crimes, offered her old school friend her arm. “Do not think I have forgotten that you have suffered a grave shock as well,” she said comfortingly. “Come, you must rest before we reconvene. Emily, you as well. I must apologize to you both for the unfortunate setting of such an unhappy scene. If one must discover one’s husband is a cheat and a liar as well as the victim of a violent murder, one should do so close to one’s bed, so one can take to it swiftly.”
“How very wise,” Nuneaton murmured.
Mrs. Otley managed only a nod of consent, and Nuneaton watched as the three women strolled off toward the house. Then he approached the ramshackle structure and, unconcerned about the possible damage to his exquisite silks, examined the hole from which Bea had emerged. He noted the sharp and jagged edges of the wood as a splinter pricked his thumb and peered inside the small space. Straightening his shoulders, he regarded Bea with the light of respect gleaming in his eyes. “Although your ordeal has only been hinted at and not explicitly stated, I can infer from the evidence what you have been through and would like to tell you how impressed I am with your resourcefulness and determination.”
The cognitive leaps he had to make to arrive at that deduction presented the first genuine sign of intelligence Bea had observed in the viscount, and she took the effort as the real compliment. She imagined the dandy did not exert his brain power for many people.
“Thank you,” she said before dismissing her efforts as merely a function of boredom, as she had nothing else to do while waiting for her attacker to return. “I didn’t know the circumstance of my captivity, you see, and thought my life was being threatened. If I had known Mr. Skeffington would return with the entire house party in tow, I would have of course waited patiently.”
“Ordinarily, I would counsel patience in all things,” Aunt Vera said, inspecting the rundown building for herself, “as there can be nothing more feminine than forbearance. But in this case, I must applaud your initiative, for you were provided with no amenities, not even a cushion to make that washbasin more comfortable. It’s barbaric. Now, let’s do follow the others so that we may clean that wound on your head and get a better look at it. I think it’s an indication of Helen’s distress at her son’s behavior that she didn’t offer to send for the doctor to examine you.”
The gash in her forehead did indeed throb, but it was all the little cuts and scratches stinging in concert that caused her more pain. She thought again of the tub of hot water and decided the moment could not come quickly enough. She straightened her bandage and began walking toward the house.
Aunt Vera, determined to keep up with her niece’s wide stride, all but trotted alongside. “You must not despair, my dear. We will offer a vigorous defense of you,” she said to the approval of her children. “You are not altogether blameless, as you have admitted to searching Mr. Skeffington’s room when he wasn’t there, which I do wish you hadn’t done. My lecture did not specifically address the impropriety of stealing into a man’s bedchamber when he isn’t present because I assumed no such provision was necessary.” She turned bright pink as she heard the words replay in her head and promptly amended her statement. “It’s just as improper to steal into a man’s bedchamber when he is present. Actually, no,” she said, shaking her head, “it’s more improper. Indeed, a great deal more. It is perhaps the most improper thing a lady can do.”
Naturally, her son felt compelled to challenge this declaration with other inappropriate situations, and Aunt Vera, not at all aware she was being teased, answered each one solemnly and pointedly. Bea, who was still touched by her family’s sincere concern for her well-being, paid her aunt the respect of looking chastened.
Kesgrave stayed several feet behind them during the walk back to the house, conversing quietly with Nuneaton. She wondered if they were discussing the shocking events of the afternoon or if the duke was distracting his friend with nonsensical banter. Perhaps he was cataloging all the different types of timber one could use in a garden shed organized from the most durable to the least. She didn’t think his grace would tell the viscount anything important, for until the moment when they revealed the name of the killer, the investigation was ongoing and she rather thought he’d honor the sanctity of that. He’d also welcome any opportunity to show off his knowledge.
At last they arrived back at the hall and Bea went straight up to her room, where, as the housekeeper had attested, the bath was already being filled. While she waited, she inspected her appearance in the mirror and discovered that comparing her with a coal miner had been wildly optimistic. With the streaks of blood on her face, tufts of hair pointing in a multitude of directions and smudges of dirt everywhere, even on her eyelids, she looked like a chimney sweep who had lost a street brawl with a tiger.
What a picture she must have presented when she stepped clear of the building—a wild thing capable of any sort of depravity. It was a wonder they hadn’t strung her up for murder right then and there.
They still might, she reminded herself, for Mr. Skeffington was hardly done making his case. His evidence was insubstantial and his reasoning deeply flawed, but he had managed to convince his father and might yet win over others.
Well, she thought as her maid entered to help her out of her gown, I’m not done making my case either.
But the thought of the impending scene in the drawing room—dueling versions of the same horrific event—caused butterflies to take flight in her stomach, so she cleared her mind of everything for a little while and sunk into the warm oblivion of the tub.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mr. Skeffington, who entered the room with a stormy expression on his face as he grumbled heatedly to his friend Amersham about the farce they were about to witness, broke into a wide grin as he spied the imposing stranger in a red waistcoat standing near the window. His reaction surprised Bea, who had felt nothing but an increase in her unease in knowing a Bow Street Runner would be present for the revelation of the murderer. It gave the proceedings a gravitas that unsettled her, which, she knew, was an absurd response, as the matter was already as grave as possible.
Assuming the Runner was there at his father’s contrivance, Mr. Skeffington thanked his sire for taking the matter seriously. “As outlandish as it appears, I know I’m right and by the time this ludicrous meeting is concluded, everyone will know it too and offer their apologies for ever doubting me.”
His lordship harrumphed loudly and declared he had nothing to do with the Bow Street Runner currently occupying his drawing room. “Kesgrave brought him here—sent to London for him days ago and lodged him in the village—without consulting me, which is, I think, a rather poor way to repay one’s host for his hospitality. If I wanted an enforcement officer to darken my doorstep, I would have arranged for one myself.”
Mr. Skeffington greeted this information with a skeptical expression and then announced that he for one would not be fooled by the duke’s attempt to change directions midstream. “Others might take the hard stance the Runner represents as proof he had nothing to do with Miss Hyde-Clare’s crime, but I know he has been conspiring with her to hide the truth. Now he’s trying to hide the fact that he’s been trying to hide the truth. It’s all a ruse, a rather incompetent one, I might add.”
“On the contrary,” Kesgrave said as he entered the room, “I fully own that I’ve been working with Miss Hyde-Clare to solve the mystery of Mr. Otley’s death.”
Aunt Vera gasped, Viscount Nuneaton laughed, and Mr. Skeffington furrowed his brow as if trying to see the trick before it felled him. Bea imagined her own expression was not very different from her accuser’s, for she could not decipher what the duke’s game was in bringing a Bow Street Runner there. It spoke, she thought, of a disconcertingly deep faith in her judgment, as he had taken the rather extreme action based solely on her insistence that she had figured it out. He had not sought out the details of her theory to confirm it was sound, and for all he knew she would present the flimsiest of cases to the room. Mere hours before she had been sure beyond all doubt that Mrs. Otley’s lover was secreted somewhere on the estate. She had even interviewed the kitchen staff, for God’s sake!
How wrong she had been.
Bea knew this time she had her facts right, but since that certitude lent her no confidence, she was baffled by the duke’s conviction.
“Are we all here?” Kesgrave asked, surveying the room to make sure all members of the house party were present.
Indeed they were.
The Otleys sat huddled together on the love seat across from the fire, their faces twisted into twin expressions of caution as they waited to hear more unpleasant things about the man whom they had both trusted. On the armchair adjacent to them was Lady Skeffington, as composed as ever and determined to make the proceedings as relaxed as a morning call between intimates, as she offered tea to her guests and talked about the lovely weather. (“Such a delightful relief given the soggy start of the week.”) In the chair next to her, Aunt Vera accepted the cup of steaming brew as well as a teacake from the tray offered. Flora perched on the edge of the settee across from her mother, as if afraid she might miss something if she leaned back too far. More comfortably situated beside her was Russell, who was staring at the duke as if worshipping an idol. Amused by the young man’s adoration of his friend, Nuneaton stood behind the settee next to Amersham, whose expression was at once sulky and intrigued. His lordship sat next to his wife in a wooden chair borrowed from the writing table, while his son impatiently paced the length of the floor.
Flanked by her cousins on the settee, Beatrice watched Kesgrave stride to the front of the room and position himself before the fire. He rested one arm on the mantelpiece as if posing for a Gainsborough portrait, and watching his blond curls gleam in the soft light, she was struck by how handsome he was. It was nothing new, for one had only to look at him to see his attractiveness, but in the days since she had gotten to know him, his appearance had faded into the background. In the foreground was his character, which was far more irreverent and appealing than one would expect for a pedant. Discovering he was a likable human being should not have made her sad, and yet it did, for it served only to emphasize the yawning gap between them. In any other circumstance save a gruesome murder, he would never have noticed she existed.
Bea had known it all along and called herself a fool for regretting it now.
Fortunately, she had more-pressing matters to worry about.
“Another trick,” Mr. Skeffington said of the duke’s ready admission that he was working with Beatrice. “He’s trying to confuse the situation.”
“On the contrary, I’m determined to simplify it,” Kesgrave said smoothly. “With your permission”—he looked at the father, not the son—“I would like to take a moment to review the events so that we may all start from the same place.”
“You may do whatever you like, as long as you do it quickly,” Lord Skeffington replied, darting his eyes again to the Runner by the window. Bea appreciated his anxiety, for it was indeed unnerving to have a man present who sported a pair of handcuffs.
The duke dipped his head in gratitude or acquiescence, while Mr. Skeffington muttered, “For God’s sake.”
“We will begin,” Kesgrave said, “at the beginning—that is, the night of the murder. As you all know, I discovered the body in the library a little after two o’clock in the morning. What you do not know is Miss Hyde-Clare discovered me discovering the body.”
Several people in the room gasped, including Emily and Flora. Aunt Vera, immediately thwarting his lordship’s desire to move the process along as swiftly as possible, cried out in alarm at the idea of her niece bearing witness to such a ghastly scene—no wonder the girl had been acting so strangely this week!—and required a full three minutes of soothing before she was calm enough to allow the duke to proceed.
“Although Miss Hyde-Clare was a witness to the events, I convinced her to return to bed and allow me to handle the matter on my own. I woke up his lordship, who sent for the constable. As Mr. Skeffington has observed, the gentleman’s death was without question a murder, but I found it very easy to convince the constable that Mr. Otley had suffered of his own hand. He was easy to persuade, I believe, because it was what he wanted to believe, as it would require nothing more of him. He was, by all indications, grateful for my insistence on ruling it a suicide. Would he have been less vulnerable to my argument if I were not a duke, I cannot say. I suspect the answer to that is yes.”
Although the butterflies in her stomach lurched with increasing menace the longer Kesgrave drew out his presentation, she was amused by his pompous performance. Clearly, even in this dire situation, he could not resist pontificating.
“Now, why did I insist on deeming a murder a suicide?” the duke asked. “That is a very good question. I had several reasons. First, if the constable declared Mr. Otley’s death to be murder, the perpetrator would be on his or her guard. But if he or she believed they had gotten away with their crime, they would be more relaxed and therefore more likely to make a mistake. Second, if such a ruling was made, the house party would break up at once and all the suspects would disperse to their various residences. I knew that if I were to stand any chance at discovering the villain, that must not happen.”
“I say, Kesgrave, that was damned presumptuous of you!” Lord Skeffington growled. “This is my house and thus my decision to make.”
The duke was unperturbed by his display of anger. “As loath as I am to disagree with my host, I must insist that you are incorrect. As the one who discovered the body, the decision fell under my purview. Naturally, you are welcome to decide differently when you are the first person to discover a corpse.”
Skeffington sputtered at the treatment, flapped his lips without producing a coherent response and settled on calling his guest impertinent.
Kesgrave accepted the comment with a gracious bow and then continued, “I assumed this decision to call the death a suicide would be uncontroversial, but Miss Hyde-Clare, who, you will recall, also witnessed the evidence of a brutal murder”—here, Aunt Vera wailed again at the atrocity—“was quite disturbed by the misclassification. She resolved to find justice for Mr. Otley, an admirable impulse, to be sure.”
“I had the same one!” Mr. Skeffington called from the other side of the room. He was ignored by everyone, except his mother, who assured him he had always been a diligent child.
“In the course of her investigation, Miss Hyde-Clare did indeed search Mr. Skeffington’s rooms, as did I myself. That is how I know for a fact that she did not plant the candlestick in his rooms, for I was the one who discovered it and I was the one who put it back in the wrong place. It was an egregious oversight on my part and one I can only attribute to my shock at finding it there in the first place. Why was I so surprised? Let me explain: When I ventured to the library that night at two in the morning, I had brought a candle to guide my way, a candle that I had placed on a bookshelf while I was examining the body. This same candle disappeared during my examination, taken, presumably, by the perpetrator, whose own candle had been used as the murder weapon. And now that candlestick had appeared in Mr. Skeffington’s room with blood on it. How did it get there? Why was it there?”
Kesgrave paused to let his audience consider the questions on their own. Mrs. Otley murmured, “How very strange,” while Nuneaton rubbed his chin thoughtfully and his lordship grumbled about unnecessary theatrics.
“It is a puzzle indeed. Miss Hyde-Clare, however, has some thoughts on the answer and I will now cede the floor to allow her to share them with us. Miss Hyde-Clare?” he said with a look in her direction. “I think it would be best if you came up here to speak. I would urge the other gentlemen to remain seated, as the unconventionality of the situation is enough to justify the minor break with custom.”
Beatrice wanted to say, “No, thank you, I’m fine where I am,” as the thought of standing before the company like a lecturer at a university seemed needlessly portentous. It had worked for Kesgrave because he was needlessly portentous. Seeing no way to avoid it, for to demur would be to draw even more attention to herself, she rose cautiously and walked over to the fireplace.
If only she and the duke had discussed the meeting beforehand! Then she would have known what to expect and would not have this vaguely terrified look on her face as she turned to address the company—half of whom were convinced she was a coldhearted murderess.
Truly, if Kesgrave had told her what he intended to do, she would have politely but ardently declined the honor. It was one thing to poke around in empty rooms and ask the servants intrusive questions and another entirely to boldly announce you had solved the mysterious death of a fellow guest.
Even the prime minister would balk at such an assignment.
The only person she could imagine who would relish exposing a vicious killer to a roomful of curious and suspicious onlookers was the duke himself. Indeed, with his fondness for explication, his penchant for excessive detail and his love of hearing himself talk, he was particularly well-suited for the task. That he was willing to entrust the matter to her indicated a level of respect in her abilities she’d never expected to earn.
Or he was simply throwing her to the wolves.
Both prospects seemed equally plausible.
Kesgrave greeted her with a brusque nod before yielding his position in front of the fireplace. He went and stood next to his friend Nuneaton, whose interest in the proceedings seemed as keen as everyone else’s, and she flinched at her argument only the day before that even he may be Mr. Wilson in disguise.
