A Death Overseas

by Caroline Dunford

  ‘That doesn't seem impossible,’ said Bertram. ‘Especially since I’ve shown the man what I’m made of.’ He gave a smug little smile. I opened my mouth. ‘No, don’t ask,’ he said. ‘I won’t tell you. But would you be content with them still thinking it was suicide?’

  ‘I could appeal to the Bishop through my mother that her thinking was unclear, so the church would not consider her action suicide.’

  ‘You could? What would that do?’

  ‘Allow her to be buried in a churchyard, and as the letter she wrote is technically mine, we might, with the Bishop’s help, prevent her children from ever seeing it.’

  ‘I think we could get round the local police,’ said Bertram. ‘We certainly know how to make our way of looking at things the more attractive option. They must be only too aware of the international situation. Threatening them with the Embassy is a good way forward even if we have no intention of using them. With Europe in such a state they will not want to offend the British Empire by impugning one of its citizens publicly.’

  ‘We are talking like Fitzroy,’ I said, and swallowed some coffee to wash away the taste. ‘We are managing things to their best advantage.’

  ‘I don’t see we have any other option,’ said Bertram. ‘I will head off and start the ball rolling with the local police. I am pretty sure I can get them to see our side of things.’

  ‘Leaving me to deal with Mary and Rory?’

  ‘And to keep Pierre under their eye.’

  ‘Do you think we could investigate privately to see who killed Eugenie?’

  ‘I don’t know, Euphemia. It would be very difficult, but I admit I want to do that too. Let us see what we can control for now. Write to the Bishop. Or your mother, or both. I will see you back at the hotel for supper. Pierre had better join us.’

  Bertram paid the bill and we went our separate ways, both of us deep in thought. I arrived back to find Mary and Rory drinking wine in the reading room despite the early hour. They hailed me happily.

  ‘Pierre is locked in the cellar,’ said Rory. ‘Mary has the best plan.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said warily. ‘Bertram and I have been talking of what to do.’

  ‘Well, Mary has been all action,’ said Rory. ‘We have prime seats at the German demonstration of electricity tonight!’

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The fullness of time

  ‘I have got the local police to co-operate,’ said Bertram. ‘And you have written to the Bishop. We’ve done everything we can. Now all we have to do is go to this ruddy demonstration and prevent Miss Hill and McLeod from setting off Armageddon.’

  ‘Are we right to think it so serious?’ I asked. We were sitting in the reading room waiting for Rory and Mary before we took a cab back to the Fair.

  ‘I suppose I should tell you I sent a little note to the Embassy to Fitzroy’s lot. I got this back.’ He passed me a small hand scrawled note.

  B & E, well done. Good Handling. Will send s.o. to watch over excitable friends. Busy chasing lost gold. F.

  ‘I think that means he is watching our backs,’ said Bertram. ‘Though you can never be certain with those blighters.’

  ‘Rory and Mary seem to have teamed up,’ I commented.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Bertram. ‘I was under the impression that Miss Hill was an intelligent woman, but she seems as crazy as all your sex and as prone to fancies. Yourself excluded, of course, Euphemia.’

  I smiled and unfairly let the slur slide against my gender. ‘They are both quite worked up about justice. When I consider that Rory would not listen to me at all previously.’

  ‘Well, neither would I,’ said Bertram. ‘Sorry about that.’

  ‘I think he is quite taken by Miss Hill.’

  ‘Do you mind?’ asked Bertram.

  I thought before I answered. ‘No. Actually, I do not mind at all. I find it quite amusing. Passion is only ever attractive when it is tempered by reason.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Bertram. He took a deep breath. ‘Euphemia, I have been thinking. I know I have asked before and for all the wrong reasons, but...’

  ‘Are we ready to go?’ asked Mary, entering the room. I noticed her hat was at an unusually jaunty angle.

  ‘Are we taking Pierre?’ I asked.

  ‘I thought we would keep him in reserve,’ said Mary.

  ‘Is the chap still locked up in the cellar?’ asked Bertram. ‘That’s not cricket.’

  ‘And I recall you beating a man, rolled in a carpet, with your shoe,’ said Rory, appearing behind Mary. ‘Was that cricket?’

  Bertram threw him a horrified look.[25]

  ‘Really,’ said Mary in a teasing tone. ‘You must tell me about this, Rory, when you have time.’

  I tried to give him a stern look that said, no, you must really not. But Rory avoided my eyeline.

  ‘I believe our cab is here,’ said Mary.

  We were all silent in the cab, lost in our own thoughts. Mary and Rory seemed in high spirits. I wished I could get Rory alone to explain our misgivings, but it was clear he had fallen under Mary’s spell and, more surprisingly, she under his.

  Where the French Pavilion had been all soft and inviting curves, the German Pavilion was all harsh lines.

  ‘The new modernity,’ said Bertram, ‘or as some say, myself included, Brutalist style.’

  ‘It looks imposing rather than inviting,’ I said.

  ‘Probably the idea,’ said Bertram.

  ‘Hail fellows and well met!’ cried an all-too familiar voice. The four of us turned as one to see Richard Stapleford. ‘Going in for the little demonstration?’ He asked. ‘You are in for a treat.’ He doffed his hat at us. ‘I may catch you afterwards.’ Then he marched past us and the rest of the queue, only to be let in by the Pavilion officials.

  ‘I should have known he would be mixed up in all this,’ muttered Bertram.

  ‘You said yourself he is looking for investments,’ I said.

  ‘He said new technology for his mills,’ said Bertram.

  ‘Well, should he install electrical lighting then Eugenie’s fears will be realised. He would make them run all day and all night.’

  Bertram glowered, but said no more. Inside, instead of amphitheatre-style seating, we were given seats in a row in front of the stage. A very large pane of glass was suspended at the front of the stage itself. Behind this stood a metal tower the height of a man with a protruding glass tube that was the circumference of a man’s arm.

  A neat little man with a pointed beard and highly polished shoes came to the front of the stage. His English accent was almost perfect, but his choice of words showed that English was not his first language. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our display tonight. Herr Schiffer will be available after the demonstration for the answering of questions. Until then might I request you remain seated for your own safety during the workings of the machine.’

  He then bowed and stepped of the stage. The lights lowered. The audience muttered in anticipation. A low buzzing sound could be heard. The air took on a different smell. A female gave a small cry of alarm. ‘There,’ said Bertram to me, pointing at the glass tube. As we watched, a ball of lightning flickered into existence. The hum became a high pitched whine.

  Then, with no warning, the ball of light flew out of the tube across the stage and smashed into a metal screen, which buckled and melted with the blow. The light disappeared. There were cries of alarm and excitement from the crowd.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Bertram.

  ‘What on earth is the point of that!’ exclaimed one woman behind me.

  The overhead lights resumed. Bertram and I were both still looking at the metal sheet.

  ‘If it can do that...’ said Bertram.

  ‘What a weapon it would make,’ I finished.

  ‘Dear God,’ said Bertram. ‘What a terrible thought.’

  The tower started to descend into the stage through a trapdoor of some kind. At the same time the glass pane was raised and Herr Schiffer
came onto the stage. He was a tall, proud man in his mid-thirties and he exuded the confidence of the arrogant. His accent was quite thick and I could not follow all he said. The general theme seemed to be that he had created a way to send energy through the air. Several people asked him what he intended to do with this, but he was surprisingly coy, saying only that he would be continuing his work thanks to the generous patrons he had already attracted.

  Eventually the discussion came to an end. The doors were open and the audience began to leave. It was at this point that Mary and Rory thrust their way onto the stage. Mary shoved the small piece of molten glass into Herr Schiffer’s face as Rory stood protectively behind her. Already guards were moving towards them. I imagine she asked him to explain it. I could not hear her over the commotion that was forming. Many people were trying to shove their way out, fearing some worsening of the confrontation.

  I saw Herr Schiffer take the glass piece in his hand and examine it closely. He said something and smiled down at Mary. It was not a nice smile. Then he dropped the glass to floor and ground it under his foot.

  Rory, seeing how wrong their plan had gone, picked Mary up and carried her off the stage, pushing the guards aside.

  ‘Better get out of here,’ said Bertram. ‘At least if they don’t catch us we can always go to the Embassy if we need to.’ Bertram and I exited as quickly as we could.

  However, it was not long before Rory and Mary joined us. Mary was furious. ‘I confronted him with proof of his misdeeds and he did not even blink. He laughed in my face!’

  ‘Did you think he would confess?’ said Bertram. ‘Why should he?’

  ‘Because he is caught! I told him we had Toussaint’s assistant.’

  ‘I hope you did not tell him where he is?’ said Bertram. ‘Or we will return to the hotel to find a body in the basement rather than a live Frenchman.’

  ‘I am not a complete fool,’ snapped Mary.

  ‘She was doing what was right,’ growled Rory. ‘Come, Mary. Justice must no longer interest Miss St John and Mr Stapleford.’

  We watched them walk away.

  ‘Well, that went a lot better than I had feared,’ said Bertram.

  I walked a few steps and sank down onto a bench next to a pretty flowerbed. ‘I am so sick of this,’ I said. ‘I still believe in justice.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ said Bertram. ‘We both do.’

  ‘And again and again we see the guilty go free.’

  ‘We do not know Herr Schiffer killed Eugenie,’ said Bertram.

  ‘We believe him to be involved. We believe Richard killed your father and possibly Richenda’s first fiancée.’

  ‘Well, Tippy was not that much of a loss,’ said Bertram. ‘Bit of a rotten fish.’

  ‘It still is not right, and what about –’

  ‘You do not need to recite the list, Euphemia. I get the point. Justice, as we have seen it, is not swift.’

  ‘Does it even exist except as an ideal?’ I asked. ‘And it's all very well Mary going all guns blazing to help Rory, but she's never explained why she hides in the bushes to talk to Germans! When you think about the international situation I don't even know how much we can trust her.’

  Bertram opened his mouth to comment in alarm, so I added, ‘Oh, I don't truly believe she has anything to do with Eugenie's death. Unless it was the German, but that's too ridiculous...’ I sighed. ‘Bertram, I cannot do this anymore! Fitzroy has opened my eyes to a world where right and wrong comes in shades of grey and the guilty rarely receive punishment. I am going to write to my mother and accept her invitation to live at the Bishop’s Palace. I will drink tea and sip sherry and be grateful for every long, boring conversation I have to sit through. I will investigate nothing more than the fashions of the latest gloves and I will read nothing of world events.’ I could feel tears brimming in my eyes. ‘I want to go back to a world where I can believe in the principles I was taught as a child. I do not want to live in this world!’

  My distress was echoed on Bertram’s face. He possessed himself of both my hands. ‘My darling girl,’ he said, ‘you are the strongest, bravest, most compassionate woman I have ever known. It is people like you – people who believe in right and wrong as you do – that keep this crazy world from exploding around us. Yes, the world is full of people who are both powerful and unprincipled, but I believe as long as we have one Euphemia still in this world then there is a chance that goodness and right will prevail.’

  I smiled and laughed through my tears. ‘That was lovely, Bertram. I wish you were right, but that you even think this means the world to me. I think of all the people in my life I will miss you the most.’

  ‘Miss me?’ said Bertram blankly.

  ‘My mother is unlikely to let me travel to visit you at your mills.’

  ‘Do you think I am stepping down in the world offering to manage them?’

  ‘I think you are trying to do some good in the world and I salute you for it.’

  ‘So you do not think it is too menial.’ I shook my head. ‘And you are being serious when you say you will no longer be able to see me and that you will miss me?’ asked Bertram.

  ‘Very much so,’ I said. ‘I hope in time I will be able to look back on our escapades and remember them fondly. If I can, you will always be the best of each of them.’

  Bertram dropped down to one knee. ‘It’s no good, Euphemia. I know living in the North Country will be a far cry from living in a Bishop’s Palace, but I cannot imagine a future without you.’ He coughed. ‘This is damn difficult. I always seem to mess things up. Or say the wrong thing. And this time I want to get it right. I am not trying to rescue you, Euphemia, or protect you – though of course I want to do that too – but the thing is, old girl, I simply cannot bear to think of my life without you.’

  ‘Bertram, are you asking me to marry you?’

  ‘Yes, I am, and I haven’t even got a ring to offer you. If I was Rory I’d say some damn silly thing about offering you my heart instead, but that would make a rather mushy ring, don’t you think? Oh, Lord, now I’m talking about offal! What I am trying to say is not that I need a wife – though I probably do. Can’t even keep tabs on my shirt collars without Rory’s help and he’s going to be staying at the estate when I rent it out. Not that I want you to do my laundry. Do you mind wet weather? I am told it is not that clement where the mills are. Could you, do you think, would you mind, would you mind awfully being my wife, Euphemia? Only the thing is, when I think about your going away it hurts a lot here.’ He tapped his chest. ‘Not like when my heart is being dicky, but worse. And it’s taken me far too long to realise, sometimes I’m not as clear-sighted as I should be – in fact, as you say, sometimes I’m downright pig-headed. Heavens, what an offer.’

  He took a deep breath. ‘The thing is, you see Euphemia, I have finally realised I love you – rather a lot. So could you –’

  He got no further as I threw myself onto the floor in front of him and with my arms around his neck, I kissed him passionately.

  ‘Is that a yes?’ asked Bertram when I finally let him come up for air.

  ‘Of course it is,’ I said, crying and laughing at the same time. ‘You are pig-headed, but I love you too.’

  ‘Not the kindest response one might hope for in answer to a proposal,’ said Bertram as he stood and raised me up to him. He embraced me tightly. ‘But then I rather suspect I need the kind of woman who will keep me in line.’

  ‘How very touching!’ The voice of Sir Richard Stapleford recalled us unpleasantly to our surroundings.

  Bertram turned, his arm still tight around my waist. ‘It seems you will be the first to know, brother. Euphemia has agreed to be my wife.’

  Richard shrugged. ‘I will send you a fish slice. When is the wedding to be?’

  ‘Well, I thought once I was established at the mills...’

  ‘Ah, yes, about that,’ said Richard. ‘I won’t be needing you. I’m selling ’em off. Got in at the ground floor with
Herr Schiffer. Did him a little favour. This lot know how to do things properly. Always useful knowing the right people. Do send me an invitation for the wedding once you’ve worked out how to pay for it, Bertie. Good evening, Euphemia. Congratulations on your catch. He might be a small fish, but at least he is a fish. Anything is better than scrubbing pots, I should imagine.’

  He sauntered off. I held Bertram back. ‘He is not worth making yourself ill over. Let him go.’

  ‘I hate him, Euphemia. I hate him!’

  ‘We will find a way, Bertram.’

  ‘I don’t know how,’ said Bertram, real grief in his voice. ‘I’m broke, Euphemia. I have to let out the estate to recoup funds. Without that position I cannot support a wife.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I will not have Richard and his wretched world snatch my happiness away once more. We will find a way, Bertram, even if it means going to live with my mother and the Bishop for a while.’

  Bertram paled. ‘I say, dear girl, living with a Bishop! Not sure I could handle that!’

  ‘Well, then perhaps we might think of living somewhere other than the big house on your estate while you rent it out to recoup funds,’ I suggested.

  ‘Could be damned embarrassing,’ said Bertram.

  ‘Nonsense,’ I said, ‘We can visit Richenda and we can carry on having adventures just as we always have.’

  ‘I really don’t have much money, Euphemia,’ said Bertram miserably.

  ‘My dear Bertram,’ I said, ‘I have never had any, and yet I have managed. I shall ask Richenda and Hans to hold the wedding at their estate as their present to us. We will manage. If we have each other, we can manage anything.’

  And to prove it I kissed him more passionately than he had ever been kissed in his life.

  Caroline Dunford

  The Euphemia Martins Mysteries

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