The Last Serenade (Sybil Ingram Victorian Mysteries Book 2)

by Amanda DeWees

  My amorous daydream fled. “I expect so,” I echoed sadly. “How dreadful it is for such a gentle and decent man to have felt that he had no recourse but murder.”

  “Man?” he repeated, and took a bite of goose. “What man is that?”

  “Why, Kenton, of course. I admit that he doesn’t seem at all the murdering type, but after what we overheard on opening night, it seems obvious to me. Were you thinking of someone else?”

  His mouth was full, so he nodded vigorously.

  “Not Julia?”

  He swallowed and took a sip of wine. “She is still the most dangerous person I know.”

  That was hard to dispute. “But do you think she is actually capable of violence?”

  “Oh, I’m certain she found someone else to do her dirty work. Philippe Charbonneau, perhaps.”

  I knew well enough from Roderick’s history how easily she could manipulate an ardent young man, but good-natured Philippe? “I can’t imagine him killing anyone—not without great cause. And how would Julia have known Fournier would leave his gloves behind and appear at the theater?”

  He rubbed his chin as he thought. “That’s a good point. Julia is unlikely to rely so much on coincidence. Still... as careful as she was in getting you to provide her with an alibi, I can’t help but wonder if she had something like this in mind from the start.”

  I sat back in my chair, appalled. “You really think she was using us all along to help her orchestrate a murder?” I exclaimed. “Oh, Roderick, please tell me that’s not true. I don’t think I could bear it if we were... well...”

  “Accessories?” The bitter twist to his mouth told me that the idea struck him hard as well. “I hope to God I’m wrong, Sybil. As you say, it’s unbearable to think we were part of a plot to murder a man. But knowing her as I do, I cannot get the thought out of my head.”

  “Darling, no. I’m sure it isn’t so.” Pushing back my chair, I hastened around to the other side of the table to put my arms around him, and he drew me down to sit on his lap. We sat thus, holding each other tightly, for a minute or more.

  Roderick had barely recovered from the horror and self-disgust of having taken one man’s life. If that unscrupulous woman had somehow employed him, to any degree, no matter how small, in another killing, I feared for his stability of mind. Pressing my cheek against his, I prayed a fierce, selfish prayer that the investigation would absolve him of any imagined responsibility for this crime. In that moment I was ready to promise anything, to strike any deal—with the devil himself, if need be—if only Roderick could emerge from this tragic tangle unscathed.

  Veteran trouper that I was, I should have been superstitious enough to remember that one should never make open-ended deals of that sort, not even in thought. For the consequences might prove to be exquisitely ironic.

  As soon as Roderick and I arrived at the theater he descended to the orchestra pit to work on a new composition. His nervous restlessness needed an outlet, and music offered that. For my part, I looked at all of the knots of people standing about, whispering and darting narrow looks around them as if suspecting all of their friends and comrades of being murderers, and shut myself in my dressing room. I had brought the script of a new play that I was considering producing, but I had so much difficulty concentrating that I had not even finished reading the first act by the time the door flew open and Julia swept in.

  “Oh, here you are,” she said. “Isn’t this exciting news about Fournier’s death!”

  “Exciting?” I repeated stupidly. But as she tossed her feather boa onto the divan next to me and unpinned her hat, she did indeed seem to be stimulated rather than shocked or horrified. Her lovely face was untroubled, her eyes clear and sparkling; she looked as far from the picture of guilt as one could imagine.

  Seating herself at the vanity, she caught my eyes in the mirror. “Yes, it’s only a pity someone didn’t kill him sooner,” she said brightly. “Then I’d have been saved the trouble of stealing my letters back.”

  “You can’t mean that.”

  “Why not?” She laughed her charming laugh and plunked her hat onto a stand. “He was a grave inconvenience, and now, pouf! He has been removed. Mind you, I had hoped Roderick would do that in the first place and spare us all the effort of this absurd masquerade, but it has actually worked quite well after all.”

  A terrible suspicion took form in my mind. “Do you mean you never really wanted to carry out this elaborate plan? Did you invent it merely to try to force Roderick to agree to commit murder?”

  She began to dig through a box of makeup. “I expected Roderick to choose the easier solution. If not of his own accord, then for your sake.”

  “What on earth do you mean?”

  Her shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I never imagined you would go through with something that required so much work. Each day after rehearsal I expected you to admit to Roderick that you’d had enough and wanted him to deliver the coup de grâce. Evidently I underestimated your love of the spotlight.”

  The calculation of it chilled me. Even after Roderick’s warnings, I had not fully recognized how ruthlessly manipulative she was. “If you think killing a man would have been easy for him,” I said, my voice cold with distaste, “you don’t know him at all.”

  This did not seem to trouble her. “Perhaps I don’t,” she said idly, removing rouge and powder from the box. “He certainly doesn’t seem to be the delightful companion I used to find him before...”

  “Before he inconvenienced you by wanting to marry you?”

  She did not even bother to reply to that. Instead, she began to apply her makeup, humming a lively tune.

  There was something about her manner that perplexed me, a kind of secret satisfaction that she was hugging to herself. Could retrieving her letters have made her so pleased with herself, or was there something else? A queasy dread gathered in my breast as I realized that Roderick could be right about her involvement. A desire to make her take the matter seriously seized me. “Aren’t you afraid,” I said, “that Fournier may have made arrangements to release all of his information about his victims if he were to die suddenly?”

  But she dismissed the thought with a toss of her head. “He was not that intelligent, I daresay.”

  The door banged open and Roderick entered without knocking. “Well?” he challenged her.

  “Your manners have grown appalling during your time in America,” she replied. “What is it that you want?”

  “Did you get the letters?”

  She cast her eyes heavenward. “Yes, I got the letters,” she mimicked.

  “And destroyed them?”

  “Bien sûr, they are nothing but cinders now. What a worrywart you are. In ten years you will have lost all your hair from tearing it out.”

  A subtle change came over his face, a relaxation of his features that told me how much strain he had been under. “Then any obligation I had to you is now over,” he said quietly.

  She waved him away with the hand that was not dabbing on her lip rouge. “Yes, of course.”

  Roderick and I exchanged glances, and I knew that he wanted to ask her if we had been her pawns in a deadly plot. But then Hortense knocked and entered, and the little room was suddenly far too crowded.

  “Sybil and I will be leaving now,” Roderick said. I knew he meant not the dressing room but the city, and the prospect was a lovely one indeed.

  Julia either did not take his true meaning or did not find it troubling. “I shall be happy to see the last of you,” she said, careful not to smudge her rouge as she spoke. Her mind was clearly occupied with more important matters.

  Out in the corridor, Roderick and I were alone. For the moment, no one else was about. “What do you think?” he whispered, indicating the dressing-room door.

  I had no need to ask what he meant, but that did not make it any easier to answer him. “I just don’t know,” I whispered back. “She might have. She doesn’t seem upset—if anything, rather pleased with
herself. But at the same time—”

  “Mademoiselle Ingram.” A policeman had appeared as suddenly as if he had popped up from one of the trap doors in the stage floor. “The inspector will see you now.”

  Roderick squeezed my hand. “We’ll talk when you’re through. I’m certain it won’t be long.”

  But once I was seated before the desk in Kenton’s office, with Inspector Girard across from me, taking notes in a precise hand, I was not as certain. This was a man who seemed unwilling to be hurried. He took his time drilling me on all of the preliminary information, such as my legal name, date of birth (I remembered to give him the genuine one), place of birth, and so on. I took care not to try to be charming but instead chose an air of dignity and respectability. The officer who had been my escort stood to one side, in case, I supposed, I tried to run or to attack the inspector, or was seized by a sudden attack of charm.

  Then, at last, the inspector got to the business at hand.

  “How did you know Monsieur Fournier?” he asked.

  “I met him at Mr. Ivey’s apartments during a rehearsal. I was given to understand that he was providing financial backing for the play.”

  “You were heard having words with him at that rehearsal.”

  I winced. I had not thought about how that would look in retrospect—but then, I had never expected the man to die. “It was nothing,” I said firmly. “A misunderstanding.”

  The inspector’s gaze did not waver. “If it was truly nothing, why did you then speak to him at the opening night reception and arrange to meet with him?”

  Ugh, this was getting sticky. “It was a sort of practical joke Julia de Lioncourt and I were playing on him,” I improvised.

  “Rather peculiar,” he said, making a note. “Are the two of you in the habit of carrying out these practical jokes?”

  “No,” I said reluctantly. “This was the first.”

  “And did you go to the agreed-upon place to meet Monsieur Fournier?”

  “No.”

  “And why not?”

  “As I said, it was a prank. The idea was that he would go to the Bois de Vincennes and wait for me, and I would never arrive.”

  His eyebrows rose slightly, and he glanced over at the policeman. “The British sense of humor is a mystery to me,” he said, and the officer guffawed faintly. Then Inspector Girard turned back to me. “And your story is that you were instead here, watching the performance with the audience?”

  He made it sound so dubious. “That is where I was,” I said stoutly.

  “And afterward you joined your fiancé backstage, where you”—he consulted his notes—“congratulated the actors on their performance.”

  I nodded. Why did he sound so skeptical?

  He did not keep me in suspense in that regard. “How curious,” he mused, “that no one I’ve questioned saw you in the audience last night.”

  “Well, the theater seats many hundreds of people, after all.”

  “Yet you stand out, Mademoiselle Ingram.” It was not a compliment. “Your face is recognizable enough that a number of people reported seeing you on opening night—but not the following one. Which brings me to another mystery concerning your story.”

  “Oh?” I tried to keep my expression pleasant and unconcerned, but my unease was growing.

  “You attended the reception on the first night of the play, as numerous people have attested. So you had ample opportunity to present your congratulations to the cast on that occasion. There was no need to do so again last night. Why, then, did you venture backstage?”

  I had never imagined that I would need to defend my presence there. What could I say that would not reveal my imposture? “I needed to discuss something with Mr. Ivey,” I improvised. “A personal matter that had come up since the reception.”

  He regarded me steadily. “Why Monsieur Ivey in particular?”

  He had sprung to mind because of his paternal role in relation to the cast, but I could hardly say so. “That is personal as well.”

  The inspector fell silent. Leaning back in his chair, he studied the ceiling for a few minutes. Then he inquired, “What exactly is the nature of your relationship with Monsieur Ivey?”

  “He is my fiancé’s employer,” I said. “He is also my friend.”

  “Could one also say he is your lover?”

  “What?” I exclaimed. “Of course not!”

  My indignation did not move him. “Yet a member of the cast has put the possibility forward,” he said blandly. “And by your own admission you hoped to have a private meeting with him last night.”

  “That’s absurd. I am engaged—”

  “—to Monsieur Roderick Brooke, the violinist, yes. But the two of you have separate suites at your hotel, so he does not necessarily know where you spend your nights, n’est-ce pas?”

  To whom had he been speaking, that he would know such a thing? I tried to keep my temper in check and focus on the most vital points. “I love my fiancé,” I said distinctly. “I have neither the desire nor the intention to spend my nights, or my days, for that matter, with any other man. Let us move on to the next question, if you please.”

  He shrugged. “As you desire, mademoiselle,” he said as if humoring me. “How widely is it known in France that you are an embezzler?”

  I started to my feet, but the policeman stepped forward warningly, and I subsided into my chair. “That is a false accusation, sir,” I said heatedly.

  “Monsieur Fournier had reason to believe it was true. You wished to silence him before he could spread the story.” He tossed his pencil down. “I put it to you that this is why you arranged to meet with him privately at night: not for the purposes of some obscure prank but to buy his silence, either with money or with your body.”

  My stomach felt hollowed out with dread. This man actually believed me capable of killing Fournier. “If you contact Mr. Gerhardt Atherton in London, you will learn the truth behind the embezzlement story, which is that I agreed”—how rashly!—“to be his scapegoat in order not to endanger his efforts to contract a new leading lady. Indeed, I told Monsieur Fournier as much when we first met. I had nothing to fear from him, because the only thing he could possibly hold over my head was not true and not a secret.”

  But the man was not dissuaded. “And yet you appeared agitated when you spoke with him at the reception on opening night.”

  I swallowed, overwhelmed at how much circumstantial evidence there was that could be used against me. “As I said...”

  “The joke, yes.”

  He closed his notebook, put his pencil down, and lined the two up together on the desk blotter. “Mademoiselle Ingram, I must ask you not to leave Paris for the present.”

  “Why not?”

  “You are my leading suspect.”

  The words were like a blow, knocking all the breath out of me. As if through a kind of fog I heard him continue remorselessly. “Between your desire to keep your own criminal past a secret and your determination to save your lover, Monsieur Ivey, from bankruptcy when Fournier called in his note, you had every motivation to end Fournier’s life. En fait, the only reason I am not arresting you now is that I cannot think why you would kill him here at the theater after you had gone to the trouble to lure him far away.”

  Dazed under this barrage, I groped for words. “But you are wrong!” I protested through numb lips. “You said that he was killed with a stiletto, didn’t you? I’ve never even handled such a thing.”

  “It is quite a handy weapon for a woman,” he said, unfazed. “Because it is so sharp it doesn’t require a great deal of strength to deal a deadly wound.”

  “If it’s sharp you want, you’ve come to the wrong place. All the weapons used in the theater are blunted for safety reasons.”

  “We shall see about that, mademoiselle. Two of my men are making a thorough search of the theater even now.” He eyed me without any evident emotion. “I advise you to find a lawyer who can familiarize you with the French system of j
ustice so that you will be prepared in case you must stand trial.”

  I could not even conceive that I might be put on trial for murder. Surely it could not actually happen. But this man looked as unmovable as if he truly intended to put me in prison. “Please believe that I am not guilty,” I cried. “The real killer is out there, and it is your duty to find him and bring him to justice.”

  The policeman stepped forward and seized me by one forearm to lift me from the chair. “Ça suffit, mademoiselle,” he said firmly. “That’s enough. The inspector is finished with you for now.”

  Certainly he was sitting back in his chair with an air of dismissal. Nothing felt real. It was like a scene from a terrible dream. “I—I have character witnesses,” I said. “I’ll wire to England—”

  The inspector’s eyes met mine. “Do that, mademoiselle,” he said levelly. “If you believe it will help.”

  I could not think of an answer.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Still gripping me by the arm, the policeman steered me out of the office and shut the door behind me. The loud noise of it closing made me jump and shook me out of my daze.

  My first thought was Roderick. Together we could think of a way to extricate me from this terrible situation.

  I rushed downstairs and through the corridors toward the door that led to the steps to the orchestra pit. But as I hastened by the green room the sight of Marianne playing cards with Philippe brought me to a halt.

  Perhaps the policeman’s direct tactics had influenced me, for I strode in and took her by the wrist, none too gently. As she gaped at me and Philippe stared in perplexity, I drew her down the corridor to an empty dressing room where the gas was lit and shut the door behind us.

  “Why did you tell the inspector that I am Kenton’s mistress?” I demanded. It was a gamble, but one I was confident in making. She had always been suspicious about my presence.