Silver Bells & Murder: A Violet Carlyle Historical Mystery

by Beth Byers

  “What do you mean, Vi?” Smith asked low, and Vi could see—maybe for the first time—the light of hope in his eyes. The fact that she saw anything at all went to show that their friendship was growing.

  “I mean that it wasn’t you. I’m not tending your ego or playing games with your heart or effusing to let this nonsense divide us. It was none of us who killed whoever is in that office. There is no sickness in the village. Not a virulent influenza, not scarlet fever. Mr. MacAdam spoke to one of the servants who normally works here, and they were upset we didn’t come and they didn’t have extra work.”

  “What now?” Victor demanded. “There are servants out there who want to be working? What the devil!”

  Violet ignored her brother to say to Smith, “Did you persuade some local to lurk about the edges of the house and climb a tree and watch us?”

  Smith was frowning as deeply as Vi now.

  “If we had arrived together,” he said, “we’d have turned around on that train and gone back home. Scarlet fever? I don’t think so. Not with the little ones. Not even without them.”

  “We wouldn’t have even had a second thought about it,” Violet agreed. “How did they get the fellow from the train station to be absent when the train came in? There is more happening here than whatever happened to this dead man, Smith. We’ve all been framed. They intended for us to leave and to have access to something in the house. Why?”

  “Well, by Jove, I don’t approve,” Denny squeaked. “I don’t like any of this.”

  “We stand for each other,” Vi announced. “Whoever did the killing intended for the snow to make it look like only we could have killed that fellow and for us to turn on each other. We know better, however. We won’t let them win. We stand for each other first and refuse to be their patsies.”

  “By his very presence,” Kate said, “we know someone could get through the snow and the night and enter the house. After all—”

  She trailed off as Lila lazily finished, “the victim did. Why shouldn’t the murderer have come the same way?”

  “Even if we have to lie to sell our story?” Ham asked, testing them, and Violet didn’t blame him. If they were caught in their lies, their reputations would be ruined, and his reputation was one of the pre-eminent investigators and policemen in the country. “Are we going that far?”

  Vi and Ham eyed each other. As a one-time Scotland Yard investigator, he had every right to disapprove. Still, she said, “Even if we have to lie.”

  Ham cleared his throat and glanced at the others. His gaze moved among them with weighty import. First his gaze landed on his wife, Rita. Her pretty blue eyes were wide and worried. She wasn’t as put together as usual, but Vi was sure he only saw how lovely she was. From Rita they moved to Kate and Lila, to light-hearted Denny, to Vi.

  “I agree we’re being framed,” Ham added. “They tried to get rid of us. When that didn’t work, they turned on us instead.”

  “Which means,” Vi said, “we stand together. We aren’t going to lose Beatrice or Smith because they aren’t as high ranking or rich as the rest of us. We aren’t going to let Smith’s shady past take him down for something he didn’t do.”

  “Vi, this is bad—” Beatrice closed her eyes and turned to Smith. He wrapped his arms around her as her worry for him had her pressing her face into his chest. It was so rare for Beatrice to be anything other than carefully calm that the break in her persona showed just how worried she was.

  Vi cleared her throat and asked, “What happened to the man?”

  “His throat was cut,” Smith said. “From behind, using one of the kitchen knives. It’s quite…disturbing.”

  “Then we need a good story.”

  Vi shook her head. “Last night, we tried to make dinner, and it failed. We tried again and cooked quite late.”

  So far, her retelling was true. A childhood of mischief had taught her to stray as little from the truth as was possible. “Then we went up to the large hall with all our records, and we played and partied until quite late. Nearly dawn.”

  Now that wasn’t true. Not quite. They hadn’t stayed so late.

  “What about the nannies?” Rita asked, speaking low. “They might be aware of when we actually separated.”

  All gazes turned to Kate and Lila who had the best idea of the nannies. It took Kate a moment and then she said, “I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”

  “If we’re wrong, it’ll make us seem guilty,” Ham said. “If your nannies counteract our story, nothing we say after that will be believable.”

  “We don’t have a motive,” Denny said with a nervous giggle. “Even I know that’s important.”

  “If we were up late, talking instead of dancing and such,” Lila started, “I don’t think either of the nannies would be able to confirm or deny our stories. They sleep when the children sleep.”

  “We’ll have to say that Kate and Victor went to bed early,” Rita said, “given their illness.”

  “Not sure when, however,” Ham added. “We don’t have a clock in that room, and we’re on holiday. It didn’t matter when we went.”

  “We would have,” Victor agreed. “We’ve been ill and Lionel Peter is so young.”

  “So Victor and Kate went to bed just before Lionel would have woken up,” Smith said.

  “The rest of us stayed up late, talking in the reception hall. If we all stick to it,” Ham said, “without varying—they won’t be able to shake it. An earl’s daughter, two former investigators, a group who has solved so many murders. The killer won’t succeed if we stand firm.”

  “They didn’t know what they were getting into,” Rita said with a sniff, “when they decided to take us on.”

  “They probably didn’t,” Denny laughed evilly. “Can you imagine what the poor fool is going to realize when the rumors start flying? Jack Wakefield! Hamilton Barnes! And that crazy Lady Investigator?”

  “Whoever did this must expect us to turn on each other.” Rita rubbed her brow and then tucked her curls behind her ear. “They know we’re a group of friends. They must imagine that our group has idle acquaintances or schoolyard chums that don’t matter much.”

  “No,” Kate said, shaking her head, “they think we’re just a group of friends. That’s their fatal error. We’ve become more than that over the last years.”

  Violet pressed her fingers to her lips. “Who is dead?”

  “We have no idea,” Smith replied. “The man didn’t have anything on him that I could see without incriminating ourselves.”

  “We need to either close the office door and leave a second finding to the servants,” Ham said, “or we need to go rushing from here having just discovered them.”

  “That one,” Smith said. “We go to the police. We control the narrative. We start as victims. Why did they lie to us about illness in the village? Why was the train station unmonitored when Vi and Jack arrived? Where did the servants go? We’re victims here. Girls, we need you to cry about it. Be hysterical. Get affronted if they question whether we might have slipped away from each other.”

  “I’ll whine,” Lila said.

  “I can cry,” Rita added, “I cry a lot lately anyway.”

  No one liked to hear that, but they had a plan. It wouldn’t be the first time that they had been involved in a murder, but it would be the first time when it seemed that the only possibility for the killer was one of them.

  “We have to stand together,” Ham added as he started towards the front door of the house. “Smith, you come with me. Rita and Lila, you need to be weeping by the time they come. Vi, don’t look at the body, but prepare yourself to be blue and upset.”

  Vi snorted, but she nodded. She desperately tried to stay out of the grey days, but for her friends, she’d dive right into the dark end to protect them.

  Chapter 10

  “Go upstairs,” Smith said to Beatrice. “Work with Vi or something.”

  “What. No—” Her warm brown eyes fixed on Smith, and Vi felt
as though she could reach out and touch the tension between the two of them. “I will help you with whatever you’re up to.”

  “I don’t want you to help me, Beatrice,” Smith told her precisely. “I want you to be safe and not be involved with what I’m about to do. Also, Vi is the best alibi among us what with that earldom behind her. So, you should stay with Vi.”

  “I will not,” Beatrice snapped. “Since when are you protective and careful with me?”

  Smith groaned and muttered low, “Jack has become contagious.”

  “What do you want to do?” Beatrice’s calmness didn’t extend to Smith.

  Smith eyed them and then said, “I want to make it look like someone broke in.”

  Ham had already gone to put on his snow gear and intended to hike in the tracks of the sleigh, showing the need for help and perhaps an edge of panic. Violet and Beatrice followed Smith to the back of the house. Rather than stepping outside, he opened a window and then frowned outside.

  “If we step out there to break the window, the timing of the footprints will be off. This fellow has been dead for a while and it snowed early this morning, but it’s been stopped since then. Any footprints would be filled in by the snow.”

  “So, we say that they just walked in?” Beatrice asked. “Maybe that’s the best thing.”

  “It wouldn’t be unreasonable that we didn’t lock the doors. We didn’t.” Vi frowned and gazed towards the window that was their target for entrance. She glanced up. No balconies, but there were rather large windows that looked out towards the lovely forest behind the lodge. Views had been promised, but none of them had been enjoying them. Not with the chill and the battle against the cold. Surely, however, those windows opened? Maybe they even pulled back like French doors?

  Smith was still debating the efficacy of making it look like there was a break in while Violet’s mind, almost unwillingly, had turned to how they could make it look like the window had been broken without leaving footprints.

  “What if we just break it from the inside?” Beatrice asked. “They might not notice.”

  “I’d prefer to not risk our freedom in the hopes the investigator is an idiot.”

  “But maybe they’d have had a reason to not need to break in,” Vi said low. “What if this fellow would have had a key?”

  “The point is that the murderer wouldn’t have had a key,” Beatrice said. “That’s the theory we’re presenting by doing this, anyway.”

  Smith nodded. “The plan is to layer evidence against us, Vi. We’re providing ourselves a…level of doubt. Why would any of us break into this house? All we would need to do is ring the bell.”

  “They could blame the man who died and say it was one of us who killed him.”

  “That’s the plan anyway, isn’t it? But for us, it would be defense. And whatever he was after isn't our secret. We don’t know who he is or why he’s after something here, but for all we know—he could have had a key.”

  Vi paused and then said, “This is all ridiculous.”

  Smith grinned that evil smile that always looked so wrong in his angelic face.

  Vi groaned and closed her eyes. “I have the most terrible idea.”

  Smith’s gaze jerked to her.

  “There’s a window right above this one and a croquet mallet in the hall closet.”

  His eyes glinted with the same terrible humor that probably fed her own imaginings. They both turned to Beatrice, who silently and almost frantically shook her head.

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Jack would kill me if it were anyone other than him dangling me out a window.” Vi couldn’t help but hide a smirk. Maybe it was because she hadn’t laid her eyes on that body, but it didn’t seem quite real to her. “And last time I crawled up the dumbwaiter shaft.”

  “I wasn’t there for that,” Beatrice said. “I’d have done that.”

  “But Jack, he’d be furious.” Vi fluttered her lashes and then mournfully shook her head. “He’d wring all our necks. I’m just looking out for our well-being.”

  “Of course he would,” Beatrice muttered, adding even more darkly, “of course you are. Let's just hang Beatrice out the window. Why not you?” Her eyes were fixed on Smith, who lifted a brow.

  Violet had placed her hand over her mouth. It was so rare for her to see Beatrice truly letting down all of her careful walls and not hiding her thoughts.

  Beatrice answered for Smith, “You can’t hold me up, Beatrice darling,” she imitated, sounding eerily similar to Smith.

  “Come now,” he said, tucking her under his arm. “I won’t drop you.”

  “Well, not as long as it doesn’t interfere with whatever illegal and highly wrong thing you are doing.”

  “As long as—” Smith agreed.

  Vi’s giggles were cut off by Smith who said, “Let’s get this done before they get back. We’ll need to put some water in as if snow had melted. The scene isn’t easy to create, and we have no idea how much time we have.”

  Smith and Beatrice went to find the right window while Violet ran for the croquet mallet. She took hold of it with her skirt, so she wasn’t leaving fingerprints. On the way up the stairs, she reminded herself to return the croquet mallet to the closet in just the same way she’d found it.

  Beatrice had placed pajama pants on her legs to keep her skirt from flying to her face as she dangled upside down. Smith had opened the window and carefully moved the snow on the outside rim to the side.

  “We’ll return the snow once she’s done. Try not to muss it, Beatrice.”

  Her dark look promised tortures to come, but Smith seemed to enjoy that more than if she’d been happy about doing this. Beatrice put on her gloves and Violet handed over the mallet. Smith knelt down and anchored himself and Beatrice carefully crawled over his lap. He took a tight hold of her feet, and in another moment, she was hanging by her ankles.

  Vi prayed quietly and was rewarded with the sound of shattering glass. She didn’t breathe easily until Beatrice was back inside, red-faced, and shaking slightly. Smith pressed a kiss against her temple and then carefully arranged the snow again.

  They shut the window and Vi hurried downstairs with Smith, while Beatrice went to change again. The room they had used was one nobody was staying in as they’d all gathered at the front of the house near the large master bedroom Victor and Kate had selected.

  Violet found Denny and Lila in the kitchen. They were attempting to put a stew together for supper, and the expression on Denny’s face seemed to indicate that he rather felt Lila should take over, and he should nap.

  “Did you hear the breaking glass?” Denny asked. “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” Vi said and then winked.

  “What did you do?”

  “I came to help cook,” she lied. “I feel certain that it isn’t a great idea to be thinking of our appetites with a dead body down the hall.”

  “Shall we all throw ourselves on the nearest lounge and cover our eyes against the horror?” Denny sounded too casual for her, but she knew him well enough to know he wasn’t as cold-hearted as that seemed.

  She waited until he winced.

  “You know I eat when I’m not well.”

  “I know that we’re in a situation.”

  Denny nibbled his bottom lip. “I don’t want to be in a situation. How hard is a roast chicken, some eggnog, and presents? Why must holidays be madness, Vi? What were the chances? We come to the middle of nowhere, where we don’t know anyone, and some madman lies to us about illnesses to drive us away.”

  “They’d have succeeded if we’d arrived together or if there hadn’t been snow.”

  “But they didn’t succeed,” Denny said. “Why the devil didn’t they just wait until we were gone?”

  Vi shook her head. Every other time they’d come across a body, they had an idea of why that person might have been killed. Or at least, they‘d had a clue what was going on. This time—it was sheer madness, and they were totally in the da
rk.

  Violet was tempted to go and look at the body. To make it seem real. “Did he look old? Or wealthy? What did you see?”

  Denny considered and then said, “Looked a bit like a normal fellow. Not too old, not too young. Looked like a bloke who’s been married, but the nippers are still at home, you know?”

  “Are we talking someone you wouldn’t be surprised to see as a poacher? Or a farmer type? A bit sturdy and strong?”

  Denny considered and then said, “Close cut beard.”

  “Like Ham’s?”

  “Bald too, like Ham, but this fellow doesn’t have Ham’s sort of Corinthian edge. This fellow had gone soft for certain, but not full fat.”

  Violet paced in the kitchen while Lila shot frustrated glances at the stove and muttered curses. To Violet’s surprise, Denny had peeled and cut the veg for Lila, so she was working on cooking the meat.

  “I do hate cooking,” Lila groaned. “The man was a solid middle class fellow. The type who would be the elder of a church or have a fairly important position in the village. Someone respected.”

  Violet could imagine it easily. “So not the house’s caretaker?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Denny popped a bit of carrot into his mouth and then scowled as he realized he’d eaten something healthy. “Even dipped in chocolate that wouldn’t be good.”

  “It’ll be good cooked with Lila’s stew.” Violet returned to her pacing as Lila protested the idea that anything she turned out would be good.

  “What is Smith up to?” Denny asked when Beatrice appeared in the kitchen. “He seemed to have a bit of devilry about him when Ham left.”

  “He’s laying a scene that someone broke into the house.”

  “Is he?” Denny demanded. “Why couldn’t I play?”

  “Because, my lad,” Lila snapped. “You're supposed to be helping me turn out something we can eat. Surely you can help with the veg to make a salad?”

  “We don’t need a salad,” Denny said cheerily.

  “I rather think we do.” Lila groaned and took a seat near the table and admitted, “I’d rather just go to bed hungry than keep up with this cooking. When Denny’s aunt died and left us money, I rather thought I should never have to cook again, and yet—here we are. I’d just give up entirely, but unfortunately, Lily eats now. We have to give her something, don’t we?”