A Dangerous Collaboration (A Veronica Speedwell Mystery)

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  “Is there anything else you require, miss?” Mrs. Trengrouse asked Mertensia. Caspian might be the heir presumptive, but her loyalty clearly lay with her master’s sister in his absence. Mertensia flicked her eyes to Caspian, but he seemed lost in thought.

  “I don’t think so, Trenny,” Mertensia replied, giving her a little gesture of dismissal. As Mrs. Trengrouse closed the door gently behind her, I turned to Caspian.

  “Has there been any word from Malcolm?”

  He shook his head. “No, but I am certain he will turn up. The locals said he is forever wandering about the island. It is part of his responsibility as master of St. Maddern’s,” he said.

  “Is it part of his responsibility not to sleep in his own bed?” I asked.

  Caspian choked slightly and Tiberius murmured, “My dear Veronica.”

  But Mertensia stared at me as she stirred sugar into her tea. “How do you know where my brother was last night?”

  “Because Tiberius and Stoker and I took the liberty of searching his room. He did not sleep there last night.”

  Mertensia put her spoon into the saucer, rattling it a little. “This is bad,” she said.

  Caspian protested. “Don’t be silly, Mertensia. The weather was vile last night. What if he went to check on one of the islanders? He might well have stayed through the storm.”

  “But the rain had stopped by this morning,” she pointed out. “He would have returned.”

  “The storm is rising again,” Caspian said with a nod towards the rain-spattered windows. “He might well have decided to remain right where he was, snug and warm.”

  “Would he not have sent word?” Stoker asked.

  Mertensia nodded. “He would. He is terribly responsible in that way. He knows we would have worried. Besides that, someone in the village would have seen him. Unless you never actually asked them, Caspian? How do we know you looked for him at all?”

  “Of course I looked!”

  Mertensia shrugged. “So you say. But if anyone had a good reason to wish Malcolm ill, it is you.”

  The four of us turned curious eyes upon him and he looked to each of us in turn, his eyes rolling white. “I—I say, you all don’t believe I had anything to do with this nonsense! You can’t. I didn’t even know Rosamund, not really.”

  “You stood to lose your inheritance if she produced a Romilly heir,” Mertensia went on. “That would have been motive enough to do away with her.”

  “Do away with her?” His eyes turned heavenwards and then he looked to the rest of us in mute appeal.

  “The lady has a point,” Tiberius said evenly.

  “I was still a boy when she disappeared,” Caspian protested. “I hadn’t even left school yet. Do you really think I would have murdered my uncle’s wife just to inherit this cursed pile of stone? And who the devil said anything about murder before Mertensia’s imagination went galloping off of its own accord? For all we know, Rosamund left of her own free will and is living in the Argentine right now.”

  He finished this rejoinder with a magnificent arch of his brow, the sort of gesture that Tiberius had mastered in the cradle. But Caspian did not have quite the nerve to pull it off. His voice had quavered a bit at the end, and the look Stoker gave him was not unkind.

  “Steady, lad, no one’s accusing you of murder.”

  “She is,” Caspian said with a jerk of the head towards Mertensia.

  “Yes, I rather think I am,” she replied.

  “You damned, beastly—”

  “Now who’s being insulting?” she asked with a triumphant air.

  “You are both being tiresome,” Tiberius pronounced. “And, Mertensia, with all due respect, the greater sin lies with you as you are the elder.”

  “By a considerable amount,” Caspian put in.

  Her upper lip curled. “Prick my vanity if you like, boy, but it means nothing to me. Our values, my dear Caspian, are nothing alike. I care for the land and the people here, the history, and the life we lead. You will never understand that.”

  “You’d better hope I do, or when I am master here—”

  Mertensia leapt to her feet, pointing an accusing finger. “There it is! An admission of your ambitions.”

  He jumped up, squaring off to face her over the tea table, nearly upsetting the dish of clotted cream. “I merely said—”

  They shouted for a little while, hurling invective at one another over the scones as Tiberius and I watched. Stoker sat, contentedly eating his way through the sandwiches before moving on to a rather appetizing-looking cake decorated with marzipan.

  “Should we stop them?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Why bother? This has clearly been brewing for a while. Perhaps it will clear the air.”

  “It’s not helping us to find Malcolm,” I pointed out.

  “That doesn’t seem to be anyone’s priority,” he observed.

  At the mention of Malcolm’s name, Mertensia and Caspian fell silent, both of them looking slightly abashed. “Poor Malcolm,” Mertensia murmured. “I wonder where he can be?”

  Tiberius took the opportunity to seize the reins of conversation. “While we were in his room, we examined the traveling bag. He was quite right about it. It was most definitely Rosamund’s and full of what seem to have been her most prized possessions.”

  Stoker and I had carefully hid the traveling bag back in the priest’s hole before restoring the panel. There seemed no reason to take the evidence from its place of concealment as it seemed far safer there than elsewhere.

  “Where is it now?” Mertensia demanded.

  “There is no call for you to know that at present,” Tiberius replied, every inch the lord. “Now, in Malcolm’s apparent absence, I shall remind you that I am the highest-ranking man on this island. Furthermore, I am the lord magistrate for my country estate and I am no doubt more familiar with the law and correct procedure than anyone else here, unless you have some constable or judge tucked away you’d like to produce?” He looked from one blank Romilly face to the other. “No? Good. Then let us be clear. I am taking control of this matter. I will authorize an island-wide search for Malcolm Romilly. Not a stone will remain unturned while we look for him. My brother and Miss Speedwell will assist me, and the pair of you will either help or keep bloody well out of my way, do you understand?”

  Caspian merely nodded but Mertensia clenched her fists against her skirts as emotions warred upon her face. Tiberius’ tone turned silken. “You must forgive me, but I am afraid I could not hear your replies.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Caspian said swiftly.

  Mertensia gave a sharp nod, seemingly against her will. “Yes, my lord.” Her voice was harsh and two spots of bright color burned high in her cheeks.

  “Excellent. Now that my brother has demolished that entire cake, I suggest we make our preparations and begin the search, as we will get nothing more to eat here.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Under Tiberius’ capable direction, the entire island was searched. The fishermen and villagers scoured the buildings and fields, not omitting the various nooks and crannies and smugglers’ caves that were inevitable in such a place. Mertensia and Caspian formed an unlikely alliance and made a careful search of the grounds of the castle. Tiberius remained in the library with the understanding that anyone who discovered anything of note would report immediately to him, and Stoker and I were left with the task of searching the castle itself.

  “It’s a ridiculous notion,” I muttered after we had climbed our fourteenth staircase and inspected what felt like our twenty-seventh empty bedchamber. “He might be anywhere. Has anyone even counted the boats? He might have sailed to one of the Three Sisters.”

  “Impossible,” Stoker replied as he poked his head into a mercifully empty water closet. “He knows these waters. He would never have attemp
ted such a suicidal act.”

  I stopped what I was doing and leveled my gaze at Stoker.

  “Don’t,” he ordered, intuiting my thoughts. “Do not even suggest it.”

  “We must consider the possibility,” I insisted. “You will admit he has suffered a great deal, and he seems a sensitive sort of man. Who is to say that finding Rosamund’s traveling bag was not the final straw? It has clearly preyed upon his mind. Perhaps having that proof that she did not leave of her own accord was too much for him. He might have brooded on it ever since he came upon it until he could stand it no more. Just imagine—he was deeply in love with her, and losing her must have been a heart-wrenching experience. After years of uncertainty, he finally discovers evidence that she did not leave this island, that she must be dead. He invites a dearest select group of guests to help him discover the truth of her disappearance and instead he seems to have raised a ghost. What horror that must have kindled within him! He must have been nearly out of his mind with grief and shock. What more natural thing than that he should decide to join her?”

  “You are forgetting two things,” Stoker pointed out reasonably. “First, if Rosamund’s traveling bag never left the island, neither did she.”

  “Your point being?”

  “That she was clearly murdered,” he stated.

  “Feathers. She might have met with an accident. She might have died of natural causes. She might have—”

  “She might have been swallowed by a whale, but it’s not bloody likely,” he retorted. “I forgot your tendency towards melodrama.”

  “My tendency to melodrama! You are the one insisting Rosamund was the victim of a crime worthy of a penny dreadful.”

  He folded his arms over the breadth of his chest. “Veronica. I realize that your feelings for Tiberius have clouded your judgment, but do try not to be quite so much a woman.”

  I gaped at him in mute outrage.

  He went on in a tone of such maddening calm that I was tempted to bring an andiron down on his head. “You have, upon many and various occasions, persuaded me that a woman might be just as capable of rational thought as a man. I might even be so generous as to point out that you have, once or twice, been possessed of more sangfroid than I myself. But I find you sadly lacking in any matter that touches my brother.”

  “Of all the cheap and desperate insults, to attack my scientist’s brain,” I began.

  He held up a hand. “If you mean to rage at me, can you do it whilst we search? Otherwise we shall never finish the entirety of the castle.”

  He left the room and I had no choice but to trot after him, my footsteps clipping sharply on the stone floors. We continued to search in silence for some time, neither of us speaking beyond necessity.

  We discovered nothing of note until we came to the last room. I pointed to the little card written in tidy script. Mrs. Lucian Romilly. I rapped gently but there was no reply. We slipped into the room, closing the door noiselessly behind us. The bedside table was littered with tins of pastilles, moist handkerchiefs, a tiny crystal goblet suitable for liqueurs, and a little flask of green glass with a chemist’s label. Stoker lifted it and gave a tentative sniff.

  “Some sort of medicine?” I asked.

  “Only to a Scotsman,” he said with a snort. “It’s rather fine single malt.”

  I thought of her gin-filled bottle of hair wash and wondered how many other caches of spirits she had brought. Her slippers—ridiculously high-heeled affairs embellished with feathers and a satin ruffle—had been left where she dropped them. Hung by the washstand was her dressing gown, an impractical confection of lilac silk. “Curious,” I said, running a finger over the watery silk. “I should not have thought her the silk dressing gown sort.”

  “What would you have thought her?” Stoker asked as he rummaged slowly through the drawers of a low chest beneath the window.

  “Black satin. A sober velvet at a push. But not something as frivolous as pale purple silk.”

  “She is a fantasist,” Stoker said flatly. “She would rather believe in her own imagination than in reality.”

  “How can you know that?” I demanded.

  He held up the book he had unearthed beneath her shirtwaists. “Her taste in private literature. A rather racy French novel with a dashing hero who risks all for his ladylove. He’s always selling himself into piracy to rescue her or renouncing holy orders to clasp her to his manly breast.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “How do you know what the book is about?”

  “I’ve read it,” he said simply. “I trade books with the parlormaid at Bishop’s Folly, and she has a penchant for French romances. You wouldn’t like them,” he added with a malicious smile.

  “And why not?”

  “Because they always feature couples who trust one another.” Before I could respond, he canted his head, studying the trunk. “What is that doing here?”

  “Perhaps it hasn’t been carried back to the box room,” I offered. “It was doubtless packed when they intended to travel today and meant to be sent on after.”

  He knelt in front of the trunk and attempted to raise the lid. “It is still locked. Do you see a key?”

  We made a hurried search of the expected places, but there was no key to be found. “I suppose she carries it upon her,” I told him. “Many women do.”

  “Then give me a pair of your hairpins,” he instructed. I did as he bade, knowing he would make quick work of the lock.

  “Mind you don’t scratch it,” I warned. “We do not want to tip our hand and let her know that her things have been searched.”

  He gave me a pitying look. “Do give me a little credit, Veronica. I have been lock breaking since before you were born. One of the many advantages of having elder brothers who locked up their pocket money.”

  “You mean you stole from them?”

  “Every chance I got,” was the cheerful reply. “There it is,” he said with some satisfaction as the catch clicked open. He lifted the lid and together we stared into the trunk.

  “What on earth—” I pulled out a piece of material unlike anything I had ever seen before. It seemed fashioned of cobwebs, almost like a sort of cheesecloth but infinitely lighter and more gossamer. Long filaments of silvery threads caught the light as they rose in the air, dancing a little in the draft from the ventilator.

  “Ectoplasm,” Stoker pronounced.

  “I beg your pardon? That is nothing like the outer layer of a cytoplasm,” I protested.

  “I am not referring to the scientific definition,” he corrected. “This is altogether different. I have only seen it once before, when I worked in the traveling show. We had a medium for a few months who would deliver manifestations and one of her little tricks was conjuring this mess.”

  “Tricks? Then she was not in communication with the spirit world?”

  He rolled his eyes heavenwards. “Veronica, there is no such thing as legitimate communication with the spirit world because there is no spirit world. You are a scientist, for God’s sake.”

  “I am scientist enough to believe that there is much we cannot explain and that it is arrogant to presume we know more than we do,” I replied. I took the length of material from him, running the exquisite softness through my fingers. It was so light it seemed to weigh less than the air itself, gossamer as a butterfly wing.

  He sighed. “Very well. But in this case, the medium was most definitely a fraud. She used butter muslin and a bit of phosphorescent paint, but the effect was similar to this—a cloud of white to emanate from the mouth.”

  “The mouth?”

  He shrugged. “Most mediums swallow and regurgitate the stuff.”

  Stoker peered into the trunk, pointing to a curious device. “A squeeze-box with straps to carry between the thighs so it will make moaning noises on cue. Candles with wicks that have been tampered with to
ensure they will extinguish at a certain time. Everything in here is designed to trick the gullible.” His mouth thinned in disgust. “No music box to hoax the sound of the harpsichord, but she has the means of every other effect. Helen Romilly is a rank charlatan,” he pronounced.

  “I see you have discovered my secret,” Helen Romilly said from the doorway. She stood silhouetted against the light from the corridor, cradling her cat against her bosom. Before we could speak, she entered, closing the door.

  “I do not blame you for your disapproval,” she said in a calm voice. “I can only plead the need to keep myself and my son fed.”

  “By preying upon the hopes and fears of the grieving?” Stoker demanded.

  She canted her head. “I will not justify myself to you. We all live in a man’s world, do we not? And you are a man.”

  “Are you saying that I cannot understand your choices?” he said, dropping the lid of the trunk with a crash.

  “No. I am saying that Miss Speedwell will understand them better. Tell me,” she said, turning to me, her eyes wide in the lamplight, “was there ever a time when you worried about keeping the wolf from the door? You earn your bread. Was there ever a day when you were down to your last crust?”

  “Yes,” I told her. Stoker’s head snapped up, but I kept my eyes fixed upon Helen Romilly’s. She stroked her cat, running one long white hand down the ebony fur over and over again. “More than once, if I am honest.”

  “Then you know,” she said simply. “You know what it means to have to think about what you will and will not do in order to stay alive.”

  “I, too, have been poor—” Stoker began.

  She cut him off with a sharp laugh, causing the cat to stir. “Until you have been forced to contemplate selling your body, you have not been poor. Do not compare your situation to ours,” she instructed. She turned those lamplike eyes to me once more. “Imagine how much greater the consequences of that choice when you have not only yourself to think of but your child as well. I have led an exhausting life, Miss Speedwell. It has been my misfortune to love feckless men, first my husband and now my son. And make no mistake, I love them truly. But it is a tiring thing to be the person upon whom all things depend. If a meal was to find its way to the table, I had to provide the coin. The same with the roof over our heads and the shoes upon our feet. I knew what I was doing when I married Lucian. He made no pretense at being a practical man, but I daresay you are woman of the world enough to understand my motivation there,” she hazarded with a glance towards Stoker.