Murder by Midnight

by Blythe Baker

  Murder by Midnight

  Blythe Baker

  Copyright © 2019 by Blythe Baker

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Description

  Newsletter Invitation

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  About the Author

  When Alice Beckingham boards a train for Edinburgh in 1929, she begins a journey that will test everything she thinks she knows about her past and her family. From the moment of her arrival at the rugged and remote Druiminn Castle, something sinister haunts her steps.

  With the murder of her host and the revelation that one of her fellow guests at the castle is an unscrupulous jewel thief, Alice resolves to uncover secrets that someone will stop at nothing to keep hidden.

  Coercing the coolly unpredictable Sherborne Sharp into assisting her, Alice follows in the footsteps of her detective cousin Rose and pursues a heartless killer through glittering dining rooms, shadowed passages, and moonlit groves. A mysterious local legend may hold the key to unraveling everything, but will Alice survive long enough to decipher it?

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  1

  The afternoon sun poured through the windows but it did little to alleviate the gloom. Darkness gathered in the corners and along the ceiling like thick clouds, and I had to stretch my hands out in front of me to avoid stumbling over the furniture. I knew this house well—it had been our family’s country estate since before I was born—but it felt different to me suddenly. More ominous.

  Distant voices came to me, growing louder and louder with every step I took towards the door. The door that would lead to the terrace and the expansive lawn beyond. My hands shook, and I tried to call out to someone—my mother or father, my brother or sister, my cousin Rose—but my voice refused to come. I could manage nothing more than dry rasps, my lips forming around mute calls for help.

  Then, the double doors to the terrace were thrown open. Sound assaulted me. Cries for help, shouts for a doctor, the moans of a dying man.

  The sunlight seemed to pour in all at once, and I turned my head away, throwing an arm over my eyes to shield away some of the brightness. Heat moved through the door, soaking into my clothes and my bones as though the sun itself was just outside the door.

  “What is happening?” I asked, finally finding my voice.

  No one answered me, so I turned back to the doors. People walked out of the brightness, their silhouettes growing larger and larger until I could see three men holding the body of a fourth. He was draped between them like a rolled up rug, swinging as they walked. I knew immediately the moans were coming from him.

  “What is wrong with him?” I asked. I looked around for any sign of my family but they were not there.

  The other men laid the injured man on the floor and stepped away.

  “Help him,” I cried, dropping to my knees beside his still form. “We must send for the doctor.”

  The noise from moments before had gone quiet, and I could hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears. When I looked around again, the room was empty. I was alone with the man on the floor. And when I finally looked down, a sob tore out of me.

  “Edward,” I whispered, reaching out to lay a hand on my brother’s chest. “What happened?”

  Although I asked the question, I already knew what had happened. He had been shot. Blood burbled from his wound like a stream as I looked for something to staunch the bleeding, even though some part of me was aware it wouldn’t help. This was only a dream. Edward was dead and had been so for over two years. Still, I wanted to comfort him.

  “Alice,” he rasped, reaching out for me.

  I grabbed his slippery hand in mine and brought it to my cheek. I felt the wetness of his blood smearing onto my skin, but I didn’t care. His face was pale and growing paler by the second. Our time was short, and I had so much I wanted to say. So much I needed to ask him.

  “Why did you do it, Edward?” I asked, the words barely coming out between sobs. “You could have stayed with us.”

  His eyes fluttered closed, and I squeezed his hand, trying to keep him there with me. Trying my best to hold on and not let him slip away.

  Edward looked up at me. His mouth opened like he was going to say something, and I leaned forward to hear it, desperate to know what his last words would be. Just as I felt his breath against my face, his hand slipped from mine…

  I started awake, breath gasping and pulse racing, to find myself safe in bed, staring up at the familiar ceiling of my bedroom in Ashton House, London.

  For a brief moment, I struggled to sort out my confusion as the mists of the dream world gradually receded from my mind, leaving me with cold, stark reality.

  I’d grown used to the nightmares. At first, I would wake suddenly, drenched in sweat, and spend the rest of the night pacing around my room waiting for day to break. Over time, however, they became the norm. I had learned how to deal with them, how to put them from my mind.

  I pulled the covers up to my neck and rolled onto my side, squeezing my eyes shut. I tried to focus on the softness of my pillow, the warmth of my thick blankets. From the room next to mine, I could hear the gentle sounds of a housemaid moving about, probably opening the drapes and laying the wood for the fireplace. From outside my window drifted the distant sounds of traffic on the streets. The city was never without traffic, no matter how early the hour.

  Despite my best efforts, peace and normality eluded me this time.

  Even though the nightmare had become routine, it was hard to forget the sight of Edward covered in blood. It was the one thing that still had the power to unmoor me and bring tears stinging at the backs of my eyes.

  I did see Edward covered in blood that day in Somerset, but that was not how he had actually died. On that occasion, the doctors saved his life. They patched the gunshot wound in his chest and shipped him off to prison. He had later died behind bars, killed in some random, meaningless brawl with another inmate. I never saw his body then, though, so the image of him bleeding across the carpet of Ridgewick Hall was the memory my mind went to when I thought about Edward’s death. After all, he had as good as died that day. He died to our family. We were never all together again. Not until the funeral.

  Everything fell apart after Edward went to prison. Our names were in all of the papers as the Beckinghams became known as the family of a criminal. A murderer. My mother would hardly leave the house. My sister Catherine went pale and quiet, keeping her opinions to herself for the first time in her life. So, I did my best to hold everything together. No one ever talked to me about Edward’s death. Not my parents. Or Catherine. My cousin Rose came the closest, but even she didn’t want to broach the subject too directly—and could I really blame her? Edward had attempted to make her one of his victims at the end. She’d nearly died by his hands.

  Two years had passed by that way. Gradually, our lives had begun to move on, but my nightmares never
did…

  My busy thoughts and emotions would not allow me to fall back asleep. Giving up the fight, I crawled out of bed, shivering in my nightgown against the chill of the room. I crossed to my window and pushed aside the drapes, letting in the gray light of early morning. Gazing out from this height, I could see the fog shrouded roofs of the neighboring homes, the tops of trees dotting the park across the way, and farther in the distance, the spires of churches and other tall buildings. As I watched, the morning gloom slowly gave way to a brilliant golden sunrise that was almost enough to wash away the memory of my nightmare.

  When I walked down to breakfast, I found the meal on the sideboard. There was an assortment of fresh fruit, eggs, toast, and sausage alongside a steaming teapot and a creamer full of milk. I made myself a plate and went to the table to join my father, whose face was characteristically hidden behind the newspaper.

  “Good morning, Papa,” I sing-songed, holding my teacup with both hands and breathing in the steam.

  He lowered the paper and tipped his head to me. It showed how quiet the house had been in recent months that that barest of acknowledgements made me smile.

  The front page of the paper was opened to me, and I noticed the headline: NYC Museum Proclaims Priceless Painting Pinched.

  “I wonder if Rose will receive a call about the art theft,” I mused.

  “Huh?” he asked absently.

  “On the front page.” I reached across the table and tapped the article.

  Papa folded back the newspaper to glance at it and then lifted his chin in understanding.

  “How far is San Francisco from New York City?” I asked.

  “Far,” he said. “On the opposite coast.”

  Rose probably wouldn’t get a call, then. I wondered if Rose and her Achilles had solved any robberies in San Francisco yet. My cousin had eloped with the famous private detective some time ago, moving to the United States to open a joint detective agency: Prideaux Investigations. Rose had quietly given up a complicated past and stepped away from a false identity, deciding not to return to her former name of Nellie Dennet or even to keep the identity of Rose Beckingham. Instead, with the blessing of every member of our family, she became Rose Prideaux. The only thing we protested against was the distance she put between us. I missed her terribly.

  She wrote frequently, often tucking a secret letter inside an envelope just for me to read, and I responded as quickly as I could. I asked her about married life and what adventures she and her husband had embarked upon. I couldn’t help but be jealous every time she wrote to tell me about the exciting cases she had solved. I just wished I had anything even remotely as interesting to write about in return. I told her about the parties I’d attended with my parents and updated her on the state of my French lessons. Rose always claimed she wanted to know everything I was doing, but I couldn’t help but wonder whether she found my life pathetic.

  “Where is Mama?” I asked, pushing ripe berries around my plate.

  “In bed,” Papa answered simply. “She was tired this morning. I had the maid take her up a tray.”

  I rested my chin in my hand. Another quiet breakfast with my thoughts. Another day spent trying to fill my time and keep myself busy.

  At the end of breakfast, I picked up the discarded newspaper and scanned the largest articles before flipping to the society pages. There was a ballet in town. The first performance was that night. I was contemplating which of my friends I could convince to attend with me when the dining room door opened.

  Our butler, Miller, was standing in the doorway with a bundle of mail in his hand. “Pardon me, Miss Alice. Is Lord Ashton nearby?”

  I shook my head. My father had already left the room by that time. “No, but I am. What do you have today? Anything for me?”

  “I am sorry, Miss Alice. Not today.”

  It had only been a week since I’d last sent Rose a letter, so I couldn’t be disappointed she hadn’t responded yet. I’d also written to Catherine, but I’d long ago given up on any timely correspondence with my sister. She had never been much of a letter writer, even before her marriage two years ago had given her new things to be preoccupied with. After her husband’s early retirement, the couple had left New York and settled closer to home in Yorkshire. When I’d visited her there over the previous summer, I’d noticed the way her letters would pile up on the desk in her sitting room before she’d finally sit down to answer them.

  Miller stepped away from the door as though he was going to leave, and I quickly called out for him to stay.

  I jumped up from my chair, tossing the newspaper aside, and ran around the table, meeting him in the doorway. “I can deliver the mail.”

  His brow furrowed, creating a crease in the middle of his forehead. “That isn’t necessary, Miss. I can see that these letters are delivered to their intended—”

  I plucked the bundle of mail from his hand before he could protest further, thanked him for his assistance, and moved up the stairs, shuffling through the letters.

  Most of it was for my father. He wrote often to all of his old school friends and to the men he’d met during the war. He was so sullen during meal times that I couldn’t imagine him being a very interesting person to receive a letter from, but based on the influx of mail he received every day, I must have been wrong.

  Edward’s death had distressed Papa most of all. He never discussed it, but after Edward was charged with murder and was later murdered himself, Papa stopped going out as often. He turned down invitations for dinners and dances. I didn’t know if he was embarrassed or ashamed or sad. Or, perhaps, all three. He didn’t like the attention Edward’s actions brought on our family, so he stopped seeking attention in any form at all.

  When I shuffled through to the bottom of the stack, I found a thick white envelope addressed in curling script to my mother. I clutched it in my hand and ran up the stairs. When I reached the top, I turned to see Miller still standing in the entryway below, looking as though he didn’t know what to do with himself. I waved to him from the landing and then moved down to knock on my mother’s door.

  “Come in,” she called from the other side.

  The window had been opened, allowing daylight into the room, but it was still strange to see her lying in bed. Growing up, I had hardly seen her sit down. She was always moving between Edward, Catherine, and me. And when she wasn’t devoting her energy to us, she was organizing the day’s work with the household staff. But this was now her third morning spent in bed this week.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked, closing the door behind me and dropping down on the end of the bed.

  Mama pushed her breakfast tray aside and sat up taller. “I’m not ill. Just enjoying a slow morning in bed. Have you seen your father yet?”

  I nodded. “We had breakfast together. Or, rather, I had breakfast with the front and back page of the newspaper.”

  Her mouth tightened. “The morning is when he does his reading for the day. It has always been that way.”

  I knew she was right, but he had always read the paper while the rest of the family talked. That was fine when there were other people to talk to, but now it was just me. I was tired of seeing the top of his head peeking over the newspaper.

  I didn’t say any of this, though, and instead held out the letter to her. “Miller brought this into the dining room for you this morning.”

  “Oh, it is from Lady Drummond,” Mama said, running her fingers over the thick envelope for a moment before tearing away the seal.

  I thought I knew all of my mother’s friends, but I couldn’t recall anyone by that name. My nose wrinkled. “Who is Lady Drummond?”

  “I met her at a ball here in town a few months ago. She came in from Scotland to visit family, and we kept one another company during an especially boring party. She has two very strong and handsome sons.”

  “Her sons were at the ball with you? Why was I not invited?”

  “Oh, well,” she said, sliding a folded piece of
paper out of the envelope. “Her sons were not there, but Lady Drummond is a very attractive woman. And she spoke well of her husband. She did not seem to be the kind of woman who would marry a weak man. Therefore, her sons are likely to be both strong and good looking.”

  “How could I dare argue with that reasoning?” I teased.

  She looked at me over the top of the letter, one eyebrow raised, and then returned her attention to it. She was reading for no more than a few seconds when she yelped in surprise and sat up in bed, lifting herself off of her pillow for, perhaps, the first time all morning.

  “What is it? Is everything alright?” I asked

  She bid me to be quiet with one hand and continued reading, her eyes scanning the page furiously. When she finished, she dropped the letter in her lap and looked up at me, a wicked smiling twisting her mouth. She looked more like Catherine than I had ever seen before.

  “It seems you will be fortunate enough to meet the Drummond men yourself,” she said, pointing to the letter. “Lady Drummond has just written to invite us to stay with them in Scotland for a week.”

  I sighed. “Lady Drummond is your friend, Mama. Perhaps, you should go alone.”

  “The invitation clearly lists both of us as guests, Alice. It would be rude if I arrived alone.”

  “Tell them I’m ill,” I said. “A plague of some kind.”

  Her brows lowered, and she shook her head. “You used to be so social. Your father and I discussed chaining you to the dinner table on more than one occasion. Yet now you can’t be bothered to make new friends?”