Murder by the Sea

by Beth Byers

  “Officially, Henry is going through these things,” Violet announced, gesturing to the tables they’d put together with Richards’s papers as she shifted Agatha. “Unofficially, we’ll be riffling through it, discovering why someone would want to kill him—other than us of course—and seeing if we can’t help Jack and Ham narrow down the suspects while they do the boring stuff.”

  Constable Henry had laughed awkwardly at the comment about their being suspects, but no one else had. He stared at them as if they were snakes and then raised his hand.

  “Yes, Constable?” Violet asked.

  “Mrs. Wakefield, why are you suspects?”

  “We hated him,” Denny told the constable gleefully.

  “Rabidly,” Rita added.

  “I didn’t—” Martha started, but Rita snapped, “Careful.”

  Martha’s tears stopped in the next second.

  Violet crossed to Rita and put Agatha in her arms, hoping that holding the angel would soften her towards having a baby with Ham and putting him out of his misery as well.

  She went to the chalkboard to their names and started making notes. It was important, she thought, to move through all those who had motives even if she knew they weren’t killers. In ruling them out and pondering on the nature of the man, she found it easier to add comments and questions to other names. Just because Martha hated Samuel for throwing her over didn’t mean she was the only woman he used for his missionary work.

  “Did anyone see him doing missionary work? Or doing more than quoting scripture and calling everyone brother and sister?”

  Rita looked baffled. “Who would pretend to be a man of the cloth?”

  “A criminal,” Lila answered lazily. “It would be just like Martha to fall for a man because he was religious and discover later he was just another liar and cheat.”

  “I say,” Constable Henry said, “I mean…well…that’s rather a bit much, isn’t it?”

  Violet smiled at the innocent lamb and was gentle as she told him, “I believe you’ll find that most people who are murdered are either wives, daughters, or sisters hurt by the men who are supposed to love them or men who have given rather a lot of people reason to kill them.”

  She turned to the board. “Look at us. We all rather hated him a lot. Since he was trying to romance Martha to get at our money, we have a compelling motive from the outside.”

  “And from the inside?”

  Vi’s grin was wicked, but Denny beat her to the answer. “Oh, we’d have let Martha marry the fellow and suffer. For it to be one of us, we’d have to be willing to murder to save Martha from him. We all disliked him, certainly, but I think that might have been true of nearly everyone who knew him.”

  “That’s not true,” Martha said. “I saw him laughing with Lord Bidlake. I saw him playing poker with Oscar and Ian. I saw him smoking with Vernon and several of the mates on the steamship. I saw him telling jokes with a few of the deckhands. He might have been a bit…a bit…much with you but that was probably because you were horrible from the start!” She looked as though she’d won an argument and Violet went to the teacart before she boxed Martha’s ears.

  Kate handed over a Turkish coffee and murmured, “Interesting move putting the baby in Rita’s arms.”

  “Interesting move bringing them in here.”

  The sisters-in-law grinned at each other. Vi sipped her coffee, set it down, and then said, “Have some, Henry. You’ll need it to deal with us.”

  “You will,” Martha said sourly, but the constable grinned as he poured himself a cup of black tea and took a butter biscuit.

  Chapter 12

  “Do we know when he was stabbed?”

  “Sometime after 2:00 a.m.,” Constable Henry replied. “They only know that because it was when you saw him. If the doctor was able to find out more, I haven’t heard yet.”

  Violet’s mouth twisted. “Rita, write out notes to invite Bidlake and Oscar Watts to dinner tomorrow. They must be at The Cliff House, right?”

  Rita groaned, but she rose, giving the baby to Lila and crossing to the writing desk.

  “Perfume them,” Lila called. “Do you have the scent of ready money? If you don’t, Violet might.”

  “Shut it,” Violet and Rita said in unison. Violet amended with, “A little perfume might not be a bad idea.”

  “Shut it,” Rita grumbled, but she frowned at Denny, who was pacing with Agatha, and nodded, and he rang for a maid to send for it.

  Violet took a few minutes to sort the papers as quickly as she could and then sighed. “Constable, you sort these to what looks like ledgers and letters, and for anything else, ask us.”

  He nodded.

  There was a map in the pile that covered many of the places that Rita and Martha had journeyed, with X’s on certain locations.

  “Kate, darling, you’re the cleverest of us. Would you see if you can put a reason to these marked locations?”

  Kate took the map, glanced to ensure Agatha and Vivi were well and then moved to the last chalkboard, putting up the map and making a list of the locations.

  “We need to talk to Vernon and Ian as well,” Violet said, knowing Rita would groan. “What do you think? Cocktails?”

  “Dinner at 8:00 p.m.—someone warn Cook. Cocktails at 10:00 p.m.” Rita wrote the letters quickly, spritzed perfume on them with a look of distaste, then sealed them before rising. “Now I want to play.”

  She crossed to the chalkboard and stared before she started writing.

  DENNY LANCASTER—Having observed so many murder investigations, it’s doubtful even someone as lazy as he would deign to put himself at risk for someone like Samuel Richards.

  LILA LANCASTER—The only people at risk of being murdered by Lila are Martha and Denny.

  VIOLET WAKEFIELD—She’s too clever to be caught for any murder. If you find an impossible crime? Vi did it.

  JACK WAKEFIELD—Honorable beyond belief.

  RITA RUSSELL—A shady character, but without motive as far as Samuel Richards goes.

  HAMILTON BARNES—Keep an eye on this one.

  VICTOR CARLYLE—Unlikely. Where’s the motive?

  KATE CARLYLE—Maybe if it were Martha dead instead.

  The constable stared at the board in confusion. “I don’t understand. Is this a joke?”

  “If we don’t keep things light, Vi gets dark,” Denny told him. “Actually, she’ll get dark as soon as we slow down. Better to do what we can to figure this out and then get her to focus on doing something charitable. Vi, you should create a charity for girls.”

  Violet turned to Denny, who handed her Vivi. “Girls like Vivi and Agatha who aren’t as lucky as these two are.”

  Vi frowned at Victor as he added, “You could choose likely girls and see them through their school days into some sort of training so they can care for themselves. Or what about the wives of murder victims? Or both.”

  “How about just woman and girls affected by murder as well as something for girls in general. Want to start a business? Pitch an idea to Lady Vi.”

  “Mmm,” Vi considered. “I prefer Mrs. Wakefield.”

  She ignored them to take Vivi and glance through the paperwork that the constable had separated. As she sank into it, Martha rose and paced the room. Finally she crossed to Kate and demanded, “Why are you marking down the stops from the steamship? Don’t you have anything better to do? Everyone acts like you’re so smart and—”

  “Enough,” Rita said idly and Martha leapt as though Rita had shouted.

  Kate scowled at the work she’d done. “It was rather obvious, I suppose.”

  “I suppose I should have noticed,” Rita admitted, “having been on the steamship.”

  “That’s solved, then. Kate, why don’t you come help me,” Violet suggested.

  Kate started with the letters while Violet tried to determine the nature of the ledgers. While they worked, Rita plucked all the possible details from Martha’s ridiculously vapid head.

  At some
point, Jane and Poppy came for the girls and Kate followed to see to their feeding. When she returned, she took up where she’d left off. Henry helped by sorting the letters according to sender and date while Denny picked up random ones to read aloud to Victor. Many of them made no sense.

  After hours, Violet looked up rubbing her eyes. “If these are missionary ledgers, I’ll be very surprised.”

  “I am almost positive,” Kate said, massaging the back of her neck, “that these are coded business letters and—if I were to guess—blackmail letters.” Victor crossed to her and took over kneading her neck and shoulders.

  “Oh thank goodness,” the constable said in relief. “I was thinking the same thing and wondering if Chief Inspector Barnes was going to see to it that I never got past constable. I would like to work for Scotland Yard someday.”

  Violet didn’t mock him as he seemed to expect. “I think you’d be a good candidate, Constable. What’s your first name?”

  “Jack.” Henry blushed.

  “We’ll call you Henry then. Jack’s a common one, isn’t it?”

  Henry nodded.

  Violet returned to the matter at hand. “Did anyone know him as a missionary?” She looked pointedly at Martha.

  “Why would I know?”

  “You were engaged to him.”

  “I met him on the boat so there wasn’t much missionary work to do, was there?”

  Vi pressed her fingers against her forehead and took in a deep breath.

  “Shall we assume, then, that he wasn’t a missionary? In all of his paperwork, there is not one religious document other than the Bible he carried around.”

  “I think that’s reasonable,” Kate agreed.

  Violet looked at the time. “Let’s see what we can find out from Rita’s boys. Do we think that none of them knew about him?”

  Kate shook her head as did Rita.

  “In my opinion,” Rita said, “looking at that pile of paperwork, whatever is going on is not a one-man job.”

  Violet turned to Denny and asked, “Do you have the contact information for John Smith?”

  He nodded. “I love that fellow. He’s about as sneaky as they come. He’d have definitely worked for Moriarty if this were a Holmes book.”

  “It’s not,” Lila reminded him. “You’re obsessed.”

  “We should have gotten a dog before they took the good names.”

  “Rouge and Holmes are going to have puppies,” Violet announced. “We’d let you have a little Moriarty.”

  “We could have the villains,” Denny agreed. “We need an Adler too.”

  “No,” Lila said. “If you’re getting one of each, you need different litters or we’ll have cross-eyed puppies that we’ll have to bribe people to take.”

  “You could drown them,” Martha suggested.

  Violet closed her eyes before she accidentally strangled Martha. “I am napping the evening away even though it’s so late. Denny, wire John Smith, rogue private investigator, and see what he can find out about Samuel Richards and Rita’s men.”

  Denny grinned and crossed to the desk to write his own note. “I’ll offer extra money to get the information before dinner with Rita’s boys. That way we can go in knowing their secrets and see where we land.”

  “And you, Henry,” Rita said, “you have a suit, right? You’re going to be my cousin and my father’s heir. We’ll see how they bail on me.”

  “Ah.” Henry blushed. “I don’t think I have what I’d need for that.”

  “He could use one of Jack’s suits,” Victor declared, eyeing the constable. “Come with me.”

  “That isn’t going to work,” Martha snapped. “Even if fake-cousin is the heir, you’re not going to be left high and dry.”

  “Unless we lie,” Kate said. "We should lie and see what they do.”

  “It doesn’t matter if they stay or go when they realize about the money,” Rita told them. “None of them are the men for me.”

  “But, you have an idea, right? About who is?”

  Rita didn’t answer.

  Victor led Henry out of the room and Violet followed to go to her own room. She needed to clear her head. And get away from Martha.

  Chapter 13

  This murder didn’t make sense. Of course, they were starting with the premise that the people who had known Richards on the ship were the most likely suspects. Violet wasn’t sure she bought such a thing. Why had Samuel Richards come back to England? What had he been up to? Who had he worked with? Was whatever those ledgers showed something that had led to his death?

  Of all the information they had so far, Violet would guess that Richards’s most likely killer—outside of Martha—would be a partner who was committing whatever crime Richards had been up to.

  Vi stared at the ledgers long after the evening should have ended. She’d tried to nap, failed, taken a bubble bath instead, and then had found her way back down the stairs to stare at the chalkboard. She leaned back on the Chesterfield and yawned deeply. There was no reason for someone like Parkington Bidlake to even pay the slightest amount of attention to Samuel Richards, let alone kill him.

  Vi yawned again and then Rouge crawled into her lap. It was late into the evening, and the house had quieted down to nothing. One of the babies cried, but she was quieted before she could get a good wail going.

  Vi wasn’t sure when she slipped into sleep, but when she dreamed, she was holding baby Agatha and running down the pier. The sound of someone clomping after her was terrifying. Did she leap into the sea with the baby? Or did she try to hide the baby and then somehow get the villain to chase her? She paused too long and felt the stab into her side. Once, twice. She groaned and fell, holding Agatha close.

  Vi hadn’t expected dying to make her feet feel so cold. Somehow, it seemed that death should be harder. She shivered, holding the baby closer and felt the baby nuzzle her. Did Agatha know that her aunt was dying? Would she understand later how much Violet had loved her?

  “Vi?”

  Oh! Violet felt a tear slip out. She wasn’t ready to leave Jack behind. She wanted more time with him. She wanted to sleep in his arms for more nights, she wanted to feel him hold her close, she wanted to see his children grow. There was so much left to do.

  “Agatha, I’m sorry.”

  “Move, darling,” Jack said and Violet frowned. His hand was on her shoulder. She gasped and the dream faded. “Come, Rouge. Move.”

  Vi was clutching Rouge tightly to her. “Oh, I was dreaming.”

  Jack pressed his finger between her brows. “I could tell, darling. You always frown so fiercely when you’re having one of your dreams.”

  Violet let Rouge go and slowly sat up, gasping at the sharp pain in her back. She had slipped into sleep and twisted.

  “That did look uncomfortable,” Jack said. He lifted her, turned, and sat down with her on his lap. The night felt old and heavy, and Vi guessed he’d worked far too late. He placed his hand on the sore spot in her back and slowly dug his fingers in, working the pain away. “What did you dream?”

  Violet told him, and he settled his chin on the top of her head. She told him about Victor’s idea of creating a charity.

  “You’d have to handle the cases yourself.”

  “You think I should?”

  “I think you should spend as much time puzzling out how to help people as you do puzzling out who hurt someone.”

  Violet followed his gaze towards the chalkboards. She had turned the lamp on low when she’d come into the room, but there had been enough light from the windows to help. Now, however, it was a half-illuminated shadowland obscuring most of the boards.

  “Did you discover anything?”

  “I don’t think he was really a missionary,” Violet told Jack.

  “I wondered the same thing when I looked through his bags. A few collars and quite a bit of other types of clothes? Only a Bible and not one other book or essay?”

  “Who did you interview?” Violet tangled their finger
s together and laid her head against his chest. He was still rubbing the knot out in her back and Rouge was casting them both dark looks for setting her aside. Holmes had merely wagged his tail and gone back to sleep when Jack had lifted Vi.

  “The steamship is gone. We spent much of the day talking to vendors and the hotel staff. There’s nothing.”

  “If those ledgers and letters weren’t so odd,” Violet mused as she played with his fingers, “I’d guess it was some sort of drunken fight gone wrong. A furious stabbing, a quick shove into the water, and then regret.”

  “Myself as well. Or a robbery, except, Vi—he had hundreds of pounds on him. He had a decoy wallet and another that was in a special pocket in his jacket. Whoever killed him didn’t take it. Not either of the wallets.”

  Vi frowned. That meant that either whoever killed him had no interest in his money, or they didn’t realize he was carrying so much. Or—it was a crime. “What if the killer just got interrupted?”

  “I don’t know. The only people the hotel staff saw him interact with were Rita’s suitors. Ham doesn’t like that they were also who we saw him last with, but, why would any of them kill him?”

  “They have to be struggling enough to be willing to try to marry a girl for her money.”

  “But are they?” Jack asked. “Henry said that no one came by today. If it had been you, in our early days, I’d have come by. I’d have tried to see you. I’d have had a note ready with my concerns if I was turned away. Probably with something like chocolate or flowers or both, Vi. It’s not very loverly for them to have not come.”

  Violet hadn’t thought of that. “Richards took the first chance to break things off with Martha. He dropped her the second we offered money, and he didn’t try all that hard to get her back when we withdrew the offer. What if he was using her as a—as a—disguise for what he was up to?”

  “That would mean that he didn’t want what he was up to to be discovered.”

  “It’s all conjecture and as possible as anything else at this point,” Jack said. “What we do know is that someone killed him and dumped him under the pier. Someone left the money.”