A Most Novel Revenge

by Ashley Weaver

  Laurel guided Mr. Winters back into the drawing room and we went upstairs, Milo to his room and Freida and I to mine.

  The room that had once seemed so cold now seemed a tropical paradise in comparison to the walk we had just had.

  I went behind the screen in the corner and stripped off my wet clothes, setting aside the item I had found in the summerhouse. My skin was damp and icy to the touch. It would be a wonder if I didn’t catch my death.

  Freida went to the wardrobe and pulled it open. “You’ve so many lovely gowns,” she said.

  “Thank you. Choose something warm, will you?”

  She brought me a gown of emerald green velvet, and it felt wonderful to pull on something dry, though I would much rather have wrapped myself in a blanket and sank into my bed.

  Next, I went to the mirror and tried to put my hair in some sort of order. I knew it would likely be impossible, but I did my best.

  All the while, I was turning over in my mind the best way to question Freida. Finally, I decided there was nothing to do but to go ahead with it.

  “Freida,” I said, turning from the mirror. “May I ask you something?”

  “Certainly,” she said at once, but I did not miss the wariness that suddenly showed itself in her eyes.

  “What really happened the night that Edwin Green died?”

  “I … I don’t know. No one knows.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I know that it’s difficult to do, but I feel that it’s very important that you tell me the truth. Mr. Collins was missing that night, wasn’t he?”

  She was silent for a moment, and then she let out a heavy breath, as though she had been holding it in. “Yes,” she said. “That’s why I was out there that morning. I couldn’t find Phillip. I thought perhaps he was still in the summerhouse. And then I found the body. Edwin’s face was … bruised, worse than I remembered it being after his fight with Bradford.”

  “And you thought Mr. Collins was responsible because he and Edwin had had squabbles over their mutual investments.”

  She looked up at me, unable to hide the fear in her eyes. “Yes, but … I didn’t know for sure.” She hadn’t wanted to know, and I couldn’t really blame her. “He … he has had some violence in his past, you see. And he was so very secretive about that night.”

  “You thought it was possible, and you’ve been living in fear ever since?”

  “Oh, no,” she said too brightly, her face trying to convey something she obviously didn’t feel. “Things haven’t been all bad.”

  “Haven’t they?” I was a bit surprised by my forwardness and so, it seemed, was Freida. She stared at me for a moment before tears sprang to her eyes.

  I immediately regretted pressing her. I was not much good with emotional scenes, and I had been involved in all too many of them as of late. However, she recovered quickly, dashing the tears away.

  “It’s true. I haven’t been happy. He … he isn’t a loving man, my husband,” she said. “I should have listened to the things that people said about him, but I didn’t much care. I thought I was in love, and nothing was going to change my mind. Perhaps you understand that?”

  She was referring to the fact that I had fallen in love with Milo while engaged to another man. I could understand to a certain extent. My marriage had been a hasty decision, one that I had questioned the wisdom of on many occasions. Luckily, things had improved immeasurably. Perhaps the same could happen for Freida, in time.

  “I’m sorry that things have been difficult for you,” I said.

  She shrugged. “I haven’t been happy since … well, not truly happy for a very long time. But my children make me happy. And I would do anything to protect them. Anything.”

  “Including shielding their father.”

  She said nothing, but the look in her eyes told me that I was right.

  “I know that you want to shield him in order to protect your children … but he didn’t do it, Freida,” I said softly.

  She looked up at me, blinking as though confused. “What do you mean?”

  “Your husband didn’t kill Edwin Green.”

  “How … how do you know?” There was desperation in her voice, and something else: hope.

  “Because…” I hesitated, knowing that what I had to tell her might bring her pain. “Because he was with Isobel Van Allen that night.”

  Her eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

  “They were having an affair.”

  She frowned and then, unexpectedly, she laughed. “An affair? Isobel and Phillip? Are you sure?”

  “Fairly sure,” I told her. “At first, I suspected that he might have been involved in Edwin’s death, just as you did. Then tonight I found a note from your husband to Isobel in the summerhouse. It was … fairly evident that they were … involved with one another. And an undergardener saw two figures coming back from the summerhouse late that night. One of them was your husband. He looked back later and saw your husband going into the house alone. Isobel must have just entered the house. I think they spent the night together.”

  “Then you mean…” a smile broke out across her face, one of pure relief, “he didn’t do it. If he was with Isobel, he didn’t kill Edwin.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  And then, to my horror, she burst into tears.

  I quickly grabbed a handkerchief and pressed it into her hand. She sobbed into it, and I patted her back, feeling helpless and a bit confused. I was not entirely sure whether she was heartbroken or overjoyed.

  At last she recovered herself, wiping at her face and drawing in a shaky breath. “I thought he might have done it. I thought … oh, I’m so relieved. So very relieved.”

  I was relieved, too. I had worried that the revelation of the affair might upset her, but it appeared that the proof of her husband’s innocence far surpassed her feelings on that subject.

  I could only wonder at the strange love of Mr. Collins, who had thought it better that his wife suspect him of murder rather than unfaithfulness.

  * * *

  A FEW MINUTES later we went back down to the drawing room. Despite my change of clothes, I still felt chill and disheveled. Milo, of course, had never looked better.

  Laurel came at once to my side as we entered the room, and pressed a cup of coffee into my hands. “Thank you,” I said, sipping it gratefully.

  “Inspector Laszlo came back in, and I told him what had happened,” she said in a low voice. “He went out to the garage to look at the cars.”

  I nodded. Surely the water on the car would have dried by now, but there was the possibility that there might be some other sign that one of the cars at Lyonsgate had been out tonight.

  “Is everything all right, Mr. and Mrs. Ames?” Reggie asked. “Laurel was quite worried when you didn’t return home for dinner.”

  “We were, in fact, run off the road,” Milo said in a nonchalant tone, lighting his cigarette.

  This announcement was greeted by the appropriate level of shock from those present.

  “Oh, how dreadful!” Lucinda cried. “I do hope you weren’t hurt, Milo. Or you, either, Mrs. Ames!”

  “No, we weren’t hurt,” I said. “But it was rather alarming. You see, someone did it on purpose.”

  This was met with silence, everyone staring at us in surprise.

  “What’s more,” Milo added conversationally, “we have reason to believe that it may have been someone here.”

  “Why would someone do such a thing?” Beatrice asked.

  Milo smiled. “I think that’s a very good question, Mrs. Kline.”

  She opened her mouth to reply, but at that moment Inspector Laszlo came into the room.

  There was an expression on his face and something in his posture that drew my attention at once. We all stopped and watched him, as though we knew that something important was about to happen.

  It was then I looked down at the object in his gloved hand. It was a knife.

  He held it up. The metal glinted in the f
irelight and there was something else on the blade, something which looked to be dried blood.

  “Does this look familiar to anyone?” he asked. His voice was calm, almost conversational, but his dark eyes were sharp. I wondered again if, perhaps, I had underestimated him.

  “What is that?” Reggie asked, his voice strained.

  “This,” Inspector Laszlo said, looking down at the knife, “appears to be the murder weapon.”

  There was a moment of silence punctuated only by a slight gasp from Lucinda and a sharp intake of breath from Reggie.

  “Where did you find it?” It was Beatrice who asked the question, her voice cool and calm.

  The inspector’s gaze moved to her, and there was something in it that made me wary of what was to come.

  “Where do you suppose I found it, Mrs. Kline?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know.”

  His brow rose. “Don’t you?”

  “I’ve just told you I don’t,” she retorted, her voice hard.

  He shrugged. “Very well. Then I will tell you where I found it. I learned that Mr. and Mrs. Ames were run off the road tonight, so I went out to the garage to inspect the cars. One of the automobiles had tires heavily caked with fresh mud. When I opened the car, I found the knife. And whose car do you suppose it was?” His dark eyes bore into Beatrice. “It was yours, Mrs. Kline.”

  I looked at Beatrice. True to form, her features betrayed nothing of what she was feeling. Her gaze was cold and completely blank as she looked back at the inspector.

  “I’m afraid I shall have to arrest you for the murder of Isobel Van Allen,” he said.

  “Very well,” she said, her tone as expressionless as her voice had been.

  “No,” Reggie Lyons said, stepping forward. “It … it wasn’t Beatrice. It was me.”

  30

  INSPECTOR LASZLO’S HANDSOME face registered a brief expression of surprise. “Is that so, Mr. Lyons?”

  “Yes,” Reggie said. His face was flushed and his hands were trembling. “I … I stabbed Isobel. I didn’t want her to write another book. She did enough to ruin our lives already.”

  “How did you do it?” the inspector asked.

  “I … I stabbed her,” he said again.

  “You can’t bear the sight of blood,” Laurel said, and there was a hint of anxiety in her voice. She didn’t want to believe it, and she was grasping at straws.

  He looked at her, the sweat beading on his forehead. “I … I did it in a fit of rage. I didn’t have time to think about what I was doing. I’m sorry, Laurel,” he said gruffly.

  “And how did the knife get into Mrs. Kline’s car?” Inspector Laszlo asked, supremely unmoved by the scene between Reggie and Laurel. If anything, I thought he seemed a bit annoyed at the gentle way they had spoken to each other.

  “I … I meant to hide it,” Reggie said. “I thought if I put it in my car, I could get rid of it later. In my haste, I must have put it in the wrong car.”

  “And you drove Mr. and Mrs. Ames off the road on their way back from the village?”

  “I … yes.”

  “Why?”

  Reggie swallowed, licked his lips. “I was in a hurry. I didn’t mean to.”

  Inspector Laszlo did not appear to be convinced. “I think perhaps both you and Mrs. Kline had better come with me.”

  Beatrice nodded almost regally, the queen on her way to the scaffold. Reggie took a jolting step toward the door.

  “Wait,” I said suddenly. I had been watching the surprising scene unfold as if in a daze, but it was time to act on what I knew before things went too far. “It wasn’t Reggie. Or Mrs. Kline.”

  Everyone seemed a bit surprised that I had spoken, for they all turned to stare at me. I was a bit surprised myself, but I knew that I must go on now that I had started. I had discovered the final pieces of the puzzle in the summerhouse, and it was time for the truth to be revealed. “Reggie Lyons didn’t kill Isobel Van Allen,” I repeated. “And neither did Mrs. Kline. I’m afraid that it was someone else.”

  Inspector Laszlo looked extremely annoyed, but he didn’t interrupt me. I had to give him credit for that.

  “You see, it seemed strange from the beginning that Isobel Van Allen had chosen to return to Lyonsgate. She was having financial difficulties, it’s true, but she might have written the book from Africa or anywhere in the world. She claimed to be coming back for the truth, but I think that she was coming back to have her final revenge.”

  “Revenge?” Laurel asked. “Against whom?”

  I looked across the room. “Against Beatrice.”

  For a moment the mask dropped, and she actually looked surprised.

  “Isobel told me that morning at breakfast that people must pay for their sins. I wondered, at first, if she meant that she was paying the price for what had happened after she wrote The Dead of Winter, but I don’t think that’s what she meant. She spoke of having once hoped to find true love.” My eyes swept over everyone present, mentally checking off Reggie, Mr. Winters, and Mr. Collins. They had all been her lovers.

  “She worked her way through the men in your party,” I said, “but her sights were set on Bradford Glenn. I found pieces of a romance novel she had written in the summerhouse, and the description of the hero fit him exactly. However, she never finished that novel. Mr. Glenn never looked her way, and I think it made her furious that her relentless pursuit of him was in vain. She was, after all, accustomed to getting what she wanted. Everyone said as much. But Bradford Glenn was the one thing that had eluded her, and she decided to make him pay. When Edwin Green died, she found the perfect way to ruin his life.”

  “Then Bradford didn’t kill Edwin?” Laurel asked.

  “No. Isobel knew that he didn’t. She and…” I hesitated, “another gentleman were seen coming from the summerhouse late that night. They would have come across his body on their way to the house if they had been there. I can only assume that Edwin Green was still sleeping in the summerhouse when they left and later tried to make it back to Lyonsgate, collapsing in the snow just as the coroner’s jury had ruled.”

  I glanced at Freida and saw her reach over to grasp her husband’s hand. Mr. Collins looked momentarily startled, but he did not pull his hand away.

  “She wrote the novel to revenge herself on Bradford Glenn, for having refused her,” I went on. “When he wrote in his suicide note that he was guilty of nothing but loving too much, it must have seemed like the final affront. She could never forget it, and she could not forgive Beatrice. And so, when things became too difficult in Kenya, she decided to come back and finish what she started. She decided to tell you all that she was writing another book. She had, after all, been making a small amount of money writing romance novels. But she wouldn’t show the manuscript to you, Mr. Roberts.”

  He looked up, the expression on his face one of misery. I knew it must be a great blow to him to know that Isobel had been consumed with a passion for vengeance so great that even after seven years all else had fallen before it. His life, the life of his brother, had meant very little to her, and the pain was clear on his handsome features.

  “No,” he said softly. “She would never show it to me.”

  “That’s because she wasn’t really writing it,” I said.

  Everyone stared at me.

  “No, she was,” Reggie broke in, his voice suddenly frantic. “I burned it after I stabbed her.”

  “Be quiet, Mr. Lyons,” Inspector Lazslo said, not taking his eyes from me. “Go on, Mrs. Ames.”

  “There was something burned in Miss Van Allen’s fireplace, but I don’t think it was a manuscript. I don’t think she ever intended to write a book because I don’t think she meant to go back to Africa alive.”

  Mr. Roberts moaned, burying his face in his hands.

  I turned to Mr. Winters. He was watching me with a dreamy expression, as though what I was saying had no impact on him. Perhaps it didn’t. Perhaps he would never fully connect with reality. Maybe it
was better that way.

  “Mr. Winters, you told me that Isobel sent you a letter from Kenya, telling you that she intended to live out her days in the country that she loved.”

  “Yes,” he replied. “She swore she would never live in England again.”

  “But there was a tragedy in Kenya, and Isobel was forced to leave,” I said. “She knew that she could never return to her beloved adopted homeland, and so she decided to come back and have her revenge, even if she destroyed herself in the process.”

  “It can’t be true,” Mr. Roberts murmured. “It can’t be.”

  I felt a wave of pity for the young man whose life was falling apart, but I knew I could not stop now. The truth had to be revealed.

  “Isobel had given Mr. Roberts a vial of poison. It was seen by one of the servants among his things.”

  “Is that true, Mr. Roberts?” Inspector Laszlo asked gruffly. “Did Miss Van Allen give you the poison?”

  Mr. Roberts nodded, his head still lowered. “She bought it before we left Kenya. When I found out, I made her give it to me. I was afraid she meant to use it on herself.”

  “I think she did,” I said. “When the time was right and she had caused enough suffering, she intended to kill Beatrice and then herself. She had arranged already for her body to be sent back to Africa.”

  Mr. Roberts groaned again. “I didn’t know,” he said. “I didn’t know…” his voice broke and his shoulders shook with silent sobs.

  Lucinda moved to sit beside him, resting her hand gently on his arm.

  “Which brings us to the question of Isobel’s murder,” I said. I looked over at Milo and he nodded, encouraging me to continue.

  “If Edwin Green’s killer was not still on the loose, who would have motive to kill Isobel?” I asked. “It seemed that if she was not killed to keep a secret safe, she must have been killed for some other reason. Revenge seems the most obvious choice. This was not exactly illuminating. Just as she wished to have revenge, any one of you might have had reason to kill her for what she had done. She ruined all your lives, after all.”

  My gaze met Laurel’s. Her dark eyes were troubled and her hands were resting in her lap, clenched tightly together. I wished I had been able to confide in her before now, but I felt that much rested on the element of surprise, from Laurel and everyone else. After all, I had no proof. I could only hope that, in a moment of heightened tension, the killer would let something slip. I pressed on.