Pride and Premeditation

by Steffanie Holmes

  “In that case, you should thank it,” Lydia called out. “It has improved your hairstyle.”

  “Aeeeeeeeee!” Hannah screamed, clutching her head and fleeing the table.

  “Croak!”

  Chapter Twenty

  Since I was the one who found the body, Hayes and Wilson interviewed me first. I gave them as true an account as I could remember, shuddering as I had to recall the details of the blade stuck deep in Hathaway’s chest, the hilt quivering in the brisk breeze blowing in from the window. I also told them about Gerald and the stain on his jacket and the tear in his cuff. Beside me, Morrie’s hand never left mine.

  After they dismissed me, and Morrie and Heathcliff had given their statements, we had to walk back through the antechamber to get to our rooms. They’d roped off three-quarters of the room with crime scene tape, leaving the guests a narrow strip to walk. Morrie and Heathcliff flanked me, Quoth on Heathcliff’s shoulder, keeping up a steady barrage of insults to each other as a way of distracting me as we walked past the fireplace. It didn’t work, but I appreciated the effort.

  “Should we wait for Lydia?” I asked weakly. “I’m worried about what she’ll say—”

  “No,” both boys said in unison. Heathcliff picked up his pace, as though anxious to place even more distance between us and Lydia Bennet.

  “Mina!”

  I turned my head. Jo stood up from behind the red chair and ran over to the edge of the tape.

  “Hey,” she wiped a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. Her PPE crinkled as she leaned in to pat my shoulder. “I heard you found him. At the rate you trip over corpses, your friendship alone is going to keep me in business for the rest of my life. I’d give you a hug, but I don’t want to get crime scene goo on your pretty dress.”

  I backed away, holding up my hands. “Please no.”

  “You look smokin’, by the way.” Jo winked at Morrie, who gave her a thumbs up and a wicked grin. “I’m sorry your ball was ruined. Are you doing okay?”

  “It was horrible. There was so much blood – I thought the white rug had been replaced with a red one.” I gave a strangled laugh. “I guess I don’t need to tell you that.”

  “Not really. But I do appreciate a civilian’s perspective of the crime scene. Anything else you noticed?”

  “Yeah. He had this awful expression on his face, frozen mid-scream like some hideous Edvard Munch painting come to life.”

  Jo nodded. “The dead do that, especially if they expire in a sitting position. Immediately after death, the muscles in the body relax, and the mouth falls open. If the body remains in the same position when rigor mortis kicks in, the open-mouthed expression is frozen in place. In funeral homes, they have to wire their mouths shut for viewings.”

  I shuddered. “I did not need to know that.”

  “Sorry,” she grinned. “I forget you don’t find this stuff quite as fascinating as I do. In this victim’s case, his open mouth was the expression on his face when he died. Apparently, whoever killed him took him completely by surprise. As for the blood, the sword severed one of his main arteries. I’ll know more after the autopsy, but it looks as though he died from blood loss—” Jo waved over my shoulder. I turned and squinted at a throng of people walking toward us from the ballroom. The police must’ve released them after giving their statements. Alice Yo waved back before returning her gaze to her phone screen.

  “You know her?” I asked Jo.

  “Sort of. She’s Alice somebody-or-other. We go to the lesbian film club over in Barchester,” Jo replied. “In small communities like this, us queer folk stick together.”

  “Alice has been assigned to do a story on the Jane Austen fan community, but apparently she’s really snooping after another story, something to do with Professor Hathaway.”

  “Interesting. I’m surprised to see her here. She was saying last month that she was thinking of leaving journalism for corporate copywriting. Her boss is a complete homophobic creep who keeps giving her the worst assignments and cutting her hours. She’s been trying to find another job, but journalism is a hard sell these days. If she can’t break a big story or find something new by the end of the month, she’s going to lose her flat.”

  “That sucks.”

  “Yeah. She was asking around the movie night last month if anyone had any ideas for a worthwhile story, especially one on a trending topic like #metoo. We kept telling her to do an expose on sexism and homophobia in journalism, but she said that if she exposed her boss she’d never work in the industry again.” Jo picked up her crime scene bag. “I’ve got to head back to the lab. I’ll text you with what I can reveal when I know more. If you need someone to talk to, you know where to find me. But I know you’ve got those boys to take your mind off things.”

  “I do. Thanks, Jo.”

  She waved goodbye and followed the rest of the SOCO team outside. Morrie and Heathcliff dragged me toward the hall. Quoth hopped from Heathcliff’s shoulder onto mine, croaking softly as he nuzzled my neck.

  “Do you want to go home, gorgeous?” Morrie asked.

  Home. Odd that as soon as he said that, I thought of Nevermore Bookshop instead of my dingy conservatory room back at Mum’s flat.

  My bones ached with weariness and shock. I pulled my phone out of my cleavage and noted the time (and the string of unanswered texts from Mum). “It’s already late, and who knows what time it will be when the police finally let us leave the building. Let’s just stay the night here and we’ll go home in the morning.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Heathcliff swept me into his arms, grunting as he carried me up the sprawling staircase. Along the way, we passed Mrs. Maitland hauling a large pink suitcase down the stairs and one of the erotica writers struggling with a large box of books. Apart from a few people calling for rideshares, it looked as if the majority of guests were planning to stay. The prospect of a scandalous murder was too good to give up. As Heathcliff carried me through the crowd, I caught snatches of rumor flying madly about.

  “I heard he was stabbed through the heart with his very own sword—”

  “Well, I heard that his head had been nearly severed from his shoulders.”

  “…he clutched a bloody handkerchief in his hand.”

  “—according to this search I just did on my phone, in order to deliver that thrust, you would need exceptional skill with a sword…”

  We pushed our way through the throngs of guests and made our way down the hall to our room. The individual bedrooms in our suite each had a doorway into the main hall, and we’d stopped in front of the guys’ door. Morrie fished around in the pockets of his topcoat for the room key, but kept coming up with nothing.

  “Hurry up,” Heathcliff muttered, bracing himself against the wall. “Mina’s been eating too much duck confit. She’s not exactly light.”

  “Hey!” I pretended to slap him on the cheek. “That’s no way to address a lady!”

  “Croak!” Quoth added.

  Morrie recovered the key from his breeches (what it was doing there, I couldn’t guess) and shoved the door open. Heathcliff dumped me on the bed, slumping down beside me and pulling me into his arms.

  I sank against him. Now that we were alone, the full horror of what I’d seen came at me in a rush. I sobbed into Heathcliff’s shoulder, snotting all over his beautiful coat.

  “That’s it,” he muttered in a conciliatory manner, rubbing circles on my back. “Keep weeping on this coat, ruining it forever.”

  “Want to hear my theory?” Morrie bounced around the room. “If the missing jewels and window escape are anything to go by, it appears tonight’s handiwork was the purview of the Argleton Jewel Thief. But it’s interesting that he’s changed his pattern. He hasn’t murdered before. From the angle of the window, he might not have noticed Professor Hathaway sitting in the chair.”

  “Stop thinking about it,” Heathcliff snapped. “This isn’t our business. We’re all keeping our noses out of it, else Mina will end up i
n trouble again—”

  BANG BANG BANG!

  I jumped, clinging to Morrie. Something hammered against the door so hard it rattled the antique dresser. Lydia’s voice pierced the wall.

  “Mina, Mina. You must help me!”

  Morrie rolled his eyes. “Go away. No one’s home.”

  “I can hear you talking, Lord Moriarty.”

  “Who is Moriarty? We’re just three field mice hunting for cheese.”

  I sniffled back a laugh. “Let her in. She’s probably scared out of her wits.”

  Sighing, Heathcliff opened the door. Lydia fell into the room and leaped on the bed, clinging to my body in desperation.

  “Ow!” I cried, as my head slammed into the headboard. I sat up, rubbing the sore patch. “Lydia, I thought I told you not to disturb—”

  “This is a matter of life and death!” She flung herself on top of me, her hand to her forehead as though she might faint at any moment. “More precisely, my life and impending death!”

  “Professor Hathaway’s death has nothing to do with you—ow, what are you doing?”

  Lydia grabbed my hand and dragged me off the bed, yanking me so hard she wrenched my shoulder. I followed her into the hall, terrified that if I didn’t she’d separate my arm from my body. She pointed with a trembling finger to the door of our bedroom. My heart plunged into my chest.

  Across the door, in black paint, someone had written, “YOU’RE NEXT.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  YOU’RE NEXT.

  My head spun. What were these words doing on the door to our bedroom? Why would someone leave such a horrible message, unless… unless they meant to scare Lydia?

  Or me. My blood turned cold as I realized the message could have been for either of us.

  “When… when was this done?” I croaked out.

  Morrie touched his finger to the edge of the paint. A smudge came away on his fingers. “It’s not completely dry. I’d say it’s a few hours old, at least.”

  “So, around the time someone was murdering Professor Hathaway?” Heathcliff demanded. “That doesn’t seem like a coincidence.”

  “No.” Morrie frowned at me. “It doesn’t. Mina, did you piss off any Janeites this weekend? Any high school sweethearts or bitter fashion school rivals amongst the guests?”

  “You have crushed a lot of people’s toes with your boots,” Heathcliff added.

  “Croak!” said the raven.

  I held up my hands. “All right, don’t pile on. Everyone here is a stranger to me apart from you guys and Cynthia. I think it’s much more likely to be about Lydia. She was sitting on Professor Hathaway’s lap right before he was murdered—”

  “Oh!” Lydia held her hand to her forehead again. “Just the thought of it makes me feel faint.”

  “—and with that performance she and Morrie gave in the market yesterday and the way she’s monopolizing the short supply of eligible young men, I’d say she’s made a few enemies.”

  “I agree that it’s much more likely to be Lydia,” Morrie added. “That’s a relief. I thought I was going to have to care about this.”

  Lydia threw herself at Morrie’s feet, sobbing into his silk stockings. “You must protect me!” she cried. “I appeal to your sense of chivalry.”

  Morrie glanced around the hallway. “Nope, no chivalry here.”

  “Of course we’ll protect you,” I said. “That’s why we’re going back to the shop, right now. I don’t care that it’s past midnight. There’s a threat to Lydia’s life. One of the staff will be able to call us a cab and—”

  “No, no.” Lydia stood up and fixed me with a determined stare. “I won’t go back to that dusty old shop! Not when there is a murderer about.”

  “You don’t really get any choice in the matter,” Heathcliff growled.

  “Don’t I?” Lydia smirked, standing up to her full height. “I had hoped not to do this, but you have given me no choice. If I’m not to stay on here at Baddesley Hall and have my chance at securing a husband of suitable breeding and handsomeness, then I shall blab to that reporter about your magical shop and your pet raven and your real heritage.”

  “I hardly think she’ll believe you,” Morrie said, but he exchanged a glance with Heathcliff. I knew what they were thinking. Even if Alice doesn’t write a story about the magical Nevermore Bookshop, some other reporter will. Lydia could go to any one of the tabloids and they’d eat her tale right up. Hordes would descend upon Argleton to ogle the shop and take pictures with Heathcliff and terrify Quoth and turn our whole existence upside down. And that wasn’t even the worst thing that could happen.

  If anyone saw what Quoth really was, they’d haul him away to some secret lab for tests and I’d never see him again. On my shoulder, his body quivered as the truth of Lydia’s statement hit him as well. I held him against my chest, feeling his tiny bird heart patter. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you, I thought with ferocity.

  “Your expression suggests you think otherwise,” Lydia folded her arms.

  “Threatening us is a mistake,” Heathcliff growled.

  “Perhaps, but I don’t know any other way of getting what I want. When I wanted to go to Brighton as Mrs. Forster’s most special companion, all I had to do was remind Daddy of what a terror I’d be if he refused, and he folded like a deck of cards. Besides, it’s true that you have some skill at solving crimes. I trust you more than those officers downstairs, and here in this house you have a better chance of it than back at the shop.” Lydia twirled a strand of hair around her finger. “Therefore, I urge you most earnestly to get to work upon protecting my person.”

  “Very well,” Morrie gathered Heathcliff, Quoth and I into a huddle. “She’s got us over a barrel, and she knows it. I can’t believe after all the fictional characters who’ve come through the shop, it would be Lydia Bennet who’d try to destroy us.”

  “Really?” Noting the ease with which Lydia had trapped them, I found it hard to believe none of the other fictional characters had tried something similar.

  “I’m sure others have considered it. But knowing Morrie’s reputation has been enough to stop any potential plots,” Heathcliff said. “That girl is special.”

  “I guess we’re going to have to try and solve this case,” I said, the corner of my lip twitching at Morrie.

  “You don’t have to sound so glad of it,” Heathcliff growled. “I’m trying to keep you safe.”

  “I know, and Lydia is trying to get us all killed. Let’s stop this guy before that happens. Where do we start?”

  Morrie glanced over at the door. A small crowd had already gathered, drawn by Lydia’s screams. One of the men was dispatched downstairs to send for the detectives. “If we don’t know to whom the message was addressed, our next course of action is to consider who might have motive for killing Professor Hathaway. It seems unlikely this message came from the jewel thief, which means it’s possible the murderer used the story of the Argleton Jewel Thief to pin the blame elsewhere.”

  “Hathaway has a long list of enemies,” I said. “I’ve barely known the man a day and already I’d happily watch him get eaten by sharks.”

  Possibly don’t say that out loud during a murder investigation, Quoth said inside my head, as Hayes and Wilson rounded the corner of the hall and saw the message. They immediately started clearing people from the area. We shuffled back with the rest of the crowd.

  “Gerald has to be our top suspect,” Heathcliff said. “That display over breakfast this morning proves he has a reason to hate Hathaway.”

  “There’s even more to it than that,” I said, relating what Gerald told me at the bar. “And he had a red stain on his jacket and a torn sleeve.”

  “It could match the fabric found on the windowsill,” Heathcliff said.

  “And I saw Gerald go outside,” Lydia explained. “After the first dance, I was… I have learned the new word. Ah, yes, I was snogging in the servants’ hallway with Mr. Jonathan Grimsby, and I happened t
o notice Gerald out of the corner of my eye. He came from the ballroom, down the hall and headed through the door outside.”

  My delight at hearing Lydia Bennet use the word snogging was superseded by my desire to fit this new information into our theory. “Did you see him come back in that way?” I asked her.

  “I did not. However, I didn’t think much of it at the time, and Mr. Grimsby and I were very much occupied. It’s possible Gerald slipped by without my notice.”

  “Or perhaps he didn’t climb back out the window,” Morrie said. “If he needed to go back to the ballroom as quickly as possible in order to establish his alibi, and if he knew Lydia and her paramour were in the hallway, he may have decided to simply head straight across the antechamber and into the ballroom without going around the building.”

  “That makes sense, but how did he look so clean? There were no bloody footprints on the floor around the crime scene, and apart from that one speck on Gerald’s coat, he wasn’t bloody, either. Wouldn’t the person who stabbed him have been covered with blood?”

  “He must have cleaned himself up before he went back to the room,” Morrie mused. “But where did he stash whatever he used to clean himself? Hmmmm…”

  “He’s not the only suspect to consider,” Heathcliff added. “We have Professor Carmichael, his bitter academic rival.”

  “I can’t believe her capable of killing anyone,” I said. “Besides, she was sitting at our table all night.”

  “Was she?” Morrie inquired. “We spent a great deal of the evening dancing, and Heathcliff was hiding from his future wives. Can you honestly say you watched that table through the entire evening?”

  “No.” I frowned. “That means Alice Yo must be a suspect, too. She was writing that article about Hathaway that would expose his secrets. Perhaps he confronted her about it and she lost it. Jo said she was desperate for something to sell, and she said something odd to me before. She asked me not to tell the police she was investigating him. ‘Someone else’s life is on the line’, she said.”