by KJ Charles
“It was taken from your husband’s corpse, and posted to you? Good heavens. Did you report that to the police?” Susan let the answering silence spool out, then shrugged. “Well, you’re welcome to try that in court.” The insinuating sympathy had vanished from her tone.
“No,” the Duke said. “I won’t, you may not—I will not have this. None of it. These, these insults— Sir Paul, I demand you take action at once.” He pulled himself upright; Alec could see him gathering his dignity. “These slanderous accusations, this conspiracy—”
“You killed my mother!” It came out as a shout. Alec hadn’t even meant to speak. “Cara saw you go into her room and heard Mother greet you. And you came out, and Mother was dead, and there was a wet, stained pillow on the bed. You killed her.” He took a step forward. The Duke took a step back. “Cara saw you. She told me. We know.”
“Not true. Lies. You always resented my marriage.”
“No, you resented us. Was that guilt, Father? Because you knew what you had taken from us? Did you come to hate us because you’d wronged us?”
“I can’t bear this,” Mrs. Ayres said, quite suddenly. “I can’t.”
“Agreed,” Lady Cooke said. “Sir Paul, I imagine you will be summoning the police to investigate, and I will gladly bear witness to this...conversation, but I should strongly prefer to leave this house today.”
“The police, at once,” Mr. Ayres agreed. “And we shall order the bags while we wait. Jewel thieves and murderers, my God.”
“You dare not repeat that allegation,” the Duchess said. Her lips were white.
Lady Cooke looked her up and down, dispassionately. “In fact, I do dare, and I shall. I would thank your Graces for your hospitality, but really. Come, William.”
“I think I should assist Sir Paul,” Sir William said. “But the ladies should undoubtedly retire. This is an unfit scene for women.”
“Absolutely,” Susan said. “I have a dossier for you, Sir Paul, and two witnesses that you will wish to interview. It’s time to act. Time and past.”
Her tone was implacable. The Chief Constable drew back his shoulders. “Your Graces will understand, I have no alternative. I will need to send several telegrams. I must also request that your Graces remain on the premises for the moment.”
“In separate rooms,” Susan added helpfully.
“You’ll regret this,” the Duchess snarled. “You’ll all regret it.”
The Duke didn’t speak. His mouth worked, he put a shaking hand to his throat, and then he toppled like a tree.
“Father!” Alec yelped.
“Oh, God,” Susan said with disgust. “Apparently we’ll need a doctor too. If you want to help, Sir William, take Alec out of here, make him eat something, and keep him occupied. I’ve had quite enough melodrama.”
SIR WILLIAM TOOK HIS mission seriously. He rang for sandwiches, brought by a maid who could barely contain her excitement, made Alec eat two, and then dragged him out on a long walk across the moorland. He didn’t touch on the obvious subject except once, as they walked, to say, “What you said, about your father—”
“My sister’s testimony. I believe her. There was only ever her word until now, and she was only a child, so nobody else listened. But she always swore it was true.”
“Yes. I see. And the business of the ring?”
“He was shot, the ring was taken from his corpse and the Duchess has been hoarding it since,” Alec said. “I don’t know anything more, but that seems to me quite enough.”
“Yes. My God,” Sir William said. “My God. I don’t know what to say. And, uh, what about Mr. Vane?”
“I have no idea. We struck up a friendship in a club a few months ago, and I found him very pleasant company. I had no idea that he was fooling me, or what he intended. None at all.”
“What an extraordinary thing. To think the proof of a murder should be revealed by a thief. The Lord moves in mysterious ways.”
“That he does,” Alec said. “That he really does.”
The Lord’s ways seemed even more mysterious a few hours later, when they returned to the castle. Here they found a large number of police, the Duke in bed with a suspected stroke, the Duchess being interviewed under caution, and a total absence of jewel thieves.
“Scarpered,” Susan told Alec and Sir William as they stood in the hall. “We unlocked the cellar door and they were gone.”
“But how?” Sir William demanded.
“If you mean, did someone let them out, Sir Paul Maitland had the cellar key in his pocket all the time, and I very much doubt he’s their accomplice.” Susan shrugged. “They got through the Bramah lock on that safe; I dare say they can pick anything. My mistake. I should have had them tied up. Or clubbed round the head.”
“Do you think they’ve got away?” Alec asked. “That is, surely they can’t have gone far yet?”
“On the contrary. It seems two men matching their descriptions took a train at Broughton an hour ago. The carriage has been going up and down the Castle Speight line non-stop, you understand, with doctors and police, and it appears our villains hitched a ride. They got on a train to Lancaster at Broughton, they’ll have got on a different one there, and that’s the last we’ll see of them.”
“Wait. What? They rode down in the private train?” Alec demanded. “And nobody said anything?”
“They hung on the outside, I think. The guard at Broughton did say they looked rather windswept.”
“Good heavens,” Sir William said. “Good Lord.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Susan said grimly. “Before they left, they found time to nip upstairs and finish emptying Her Grace’s safe.”
“What?”
“I will have someone’s hide for this. Ah, no, I won’t though, because I’ve been sacked,” she added. “Her Grace made rather a point of not wishing to employ me further, and even instructed that secretary fellow not to pay my firm, which means her jewels are officially none of my business.”
“So you’ll just...let the thieves go, then?” Alec said tentatively.
“I suppose I’ll have to,” Susan agreed, and strolled off.
GEORGE AND ANNABEL arrived the next day, in response to Alec’s urgent telegram. They had to come, and he had to face them, but it didn’t make the prospect of the meeting any easier.
He let himself imagine telling them that all his apparent failings had been a noble deception in the service of justice, but had to reject the temptation. He couldn’t risk sharing Susan’s involvement in the burglary, for fear that might muddy the waters of any prosecution, and in truth he wasn’t convinced George and Annabel would be happy about the catastrophic scandal he’d ignited, no matter their resentment of the Duke and Duchess. No; he’d chosen this path, keeping his brother and sister in the dark, and he’d stick to it. He would say only that Jerry had led him into gambling and bad ways, that he’d realised his terrible mistake on coming to Castle Speight, that he was sorry. It would have to do and, he told himself, his misbehaviour would be far from the greatest matter on anyone’s mind. He still felt nauseous with the prospect of more rebuke to be endured and grovelling to be done as the great door opened and his siblings came in.
George handed his hat to a footman and looked to where Alec hovered nervously. “Alec. What the devil has been going on here?”
“Well,” Alec began, and couldn’t think what to say next. “Uh. It’s all been rather awful.”
“I’m damned sure it has,” George said. “Come here, you idiot.”
Alec, barely believing, found himself pulled into a rough hug. “Oaf,” George muttered in his ear. “I’m sorry, Alec. I should have realised you weren’t managing on your own.”
“I’m sorry, too.” Annabel’s arms snaked round his waist from behind, and she rested her face against his shoulder. “It’s been horrible for everyone. But we’re going to stick together now, aren’t we? We have to.”
Alec had simultaneous urges to insist, But it was all my f
ault! and to object in strong terms to the idea he needed George’s help. He bit both back. “Stick together,” he agreed, and clamped his eyes shut against the overwhelming relief as he held his siblings tight.
That reconciliation gave Alec strength he sorely needed, because everything else was awful. The Duke lay, unspeaking, in bed. The doctors weren’t sure if he had had some sort of stroke, or a nerve-storm; one of them called it a moral collapse. Between his unresponsive catatonia, the appalling accusations, and the undeniable evidence of the ring, the Duchess’s authority had slithered through her fingers. She was interviewed by the police several times, and asked not to leave Castle Speight, and since that could only be done via a walk of many miles or with the assistance of the servants, she didn’t leave.
It was not pleasant. She argued furiously with Miss Hackett, who nevertheless remained at the castle, bitter in her humiliation. The Duchess had several ghastly exchanges with Alec and his siblings, every threat sounding more hollow than the last, retreated to her rooms in a form of self-inflicted house arrest and raged impotently there, speaking to nobody but the Duke’s lawyer, who looked grim. The maids took to leaving her tray outside her door rather than have food thrown at them.
The grand dinner had been cancelled, thanks to Merrow sending frantic telegrams. Reporters were gathering in Broughton, and coming in ones and twos up the steep hill. Alec fully expected the castle would soon be besieged.
“It’s horrible,” he told Susan, as she packed. “I keep thinking the Duchess is going to do something awful. Burn the place down out of spite, perhaps.” He wished she wasn’t leaving; he wished that Jerry was here, or that he had any idea where Jerry was. “When is the Detective Inspector going to act?”
“Soon, I think. He’s good, and he’s right to be careful about this; the case will have to be watertight. I’ve given him everything I can.” She snapped her case shut and sat on the bed. “I need to tell you something. About Crozier.”
Alec felt an unpleasant twinge of dread. “What?”
“He volunteered.”
That didn’t make any sense. “Sorry? For what?”
Susan sighed. “There was always going to be a tricky part after I’d got into the Duchess’s safe. One can’t really go to the police and say, ‘I found evidence of murder in the course of committing a burglary.’ It might have fatally weakened the case against the Duchess, or left me open to a prosecution. Crozier had asked how I was intending to handle it that very morning, in fact. Well, when you and the Duchess started shouting at one another, I went up to the bedroom to see if Crozier had found the ring, which he had. I told him that things were about to fall apart quite spectacularly and that he’d better clear off. And Crozier—you have no idea how much this pains me—Crozier said, ‘Wouldn’t it be more effective if you caught me red-handed?’”
“It was his idea?” Alec said. “To be arrested?”
“Specifically, that I should catch them with their pockets full of loot, and play the whole thing out in public. It was something of a gamble, in that we could well have ended up with the Duchess denying everything and the Lilywhite Boys hauled off in handcuffs, but it worked. Crozier’s got the devil’s own nerve, I’ll give him that.”
“I can’t believe Mr. Lane went along with it.”
Susan scowled. “I dare say Crozier leant on him.”
Alec shook his head. He’d assumed it had all been Susan’s plan, that the Lilywhite Boys had followed orders. He hadn’t expected this.
“You look shocked,” Susan said. “As well you might, at the idea of an altruistic act by that pair. Well, there you are. Crozier volunteered for arrest to make our scheme work, and would have let himself and James in for some very serious trouble if they hadn’t escaped. I thought you should know.”
“Thank you,” Alec said. “When you say escaped, though...” He raised a brow in his best imitation of Jerry.
“Are you implying I let them go?”
“You deliberately got me out of the way with a witness so nobody could say I was involved, and made sure everyone knew you didn’t have the key. Did you pick Sir Paul’s pocket for it?”
“I see you’re getting the hang of this subterfuge business,” Susan said. “I was planning to send them on their way as a gesture of goodwill, yes. But I didn’t have to, because by the time I got back to the cellar, they’d let themselves out, sauntered upstairs, reopened the safe, and helped themselves to a very nice selection of the Duchess’s jewels. Bastards,” she added with feeling.
“But how? If it takes an hour to pick a Bramah lock—”
“Crozier’s key device works by sliders, adjustable mechanisms to create a sort of skeleton key. I assume they stay adjusted, meaning that once he’d opened it the first time, he had a key to the safe. I didn’t think of that at the time, so I didn’t take it off him, and my guvnor’s not going to let me live that down in a hurry. If you see Crozier again, you can tell him I want everything back.”
“I’m sure it’s covered by the amnesty. You did say including this job.”
Susan narrowed her eyes. “Don’t you split hairs with me. I told them they weren’t allowed to steal anything.”
“Yes, but those jewels belong to the Duchess,” Alec pointed out. “There’s no guarantee she’ll be convicted, and even if she’s sentenced to hang, she can still dispose of her possessions as she pleases. I’d rather Jerry and Lane had it all than see Miss Hackett inherit a fortune.”
“Well, if you put it like that.” Susan stood. “Anyway, that’s it. Good luck, Alec. You’ve done Cara proud, and—oh, damn it. I hope your trust isn’t misplaced.”
Alec made a face. “I don’t even know if I’ll see him again.”
“James Vane turns up like a bad penny, and they’re two of a kind,” Susan said. “I have every expectation of running into that pair again, sooner or later, pockets full of green-oh.”
“Sorry?”
“The Lilywhite Boys. The song? ‘Green Grow the Rushes-O’?”
“They did not take their name from a carol. Surely.”
“Merry Christmas, one and all.” Susan gave him a quick hug, hoisted her case, and left. Alec heard her singing down the corridor.
“Three, three, the rivals.
Two, two, the lily-white boys
Clothèd all in green-O,
One is one and all alone
And evermore shall be so.”
A WEEK AFTER WHAT EVERYONE was now calling The Discovery, Sir Paul Maitland returned to Castle Speight. He took George aside and warned him that the Detective Inspector in charge of the case intended to charge the Duchess with the murder of her first husband. There was insufficient evidence to prosecute the Duke and in any case it was questionable if he would be fit to stand trial. He was eating and sitting up, if only in his dressing gown, but he had not spoken a word and didn’t appear to hear much that was said.
“This is going to be awful,” Annabel said as they sat together in the drawing room that evening, all the windows open against the residual heat of the day. “A murder trial. Our stepmother in the dock. Oh goodness. It has to be done, I know, but...awful. And what about Father? What will he do?”
Alec flopped back in his chair. “Lord knows. I think it will kill him if she hangs. There’s his pride and the public humiliation, but it’s more than that. He really does love her. I don’t know if he’ll be able to carry on without her.”
“What happens if he can carry on with her?” Annabel asked. “Suppose she’s found not guilty? Suppose she’s released and they go on, visiting London, doing as they please?”
“I intend to talk to a solicitor about that,” George said grimly. “If I have to sue the Ilvar estate and my father as unfit to manage it, I will. I’ve spent long enough living at the whims of that pair and it ends here. I’m reclaiming my birthright, and yours.”
“George!” Annabel clapped her hands. “Good. Melissa will be so proud of you.”
“Melissa deserves a great deal be
tter than I have given her,” George said. “You all do, and I’m going to make sure you have it.”
“Not me,” Alec said. “I mean, yes I deserve better, but I want to get it myself. I realised that over the last weeks. I’m going to keep drawing, I am going to work on my portraiture, and even if you do sue the estate and so on, that won’t change my plans. I hope it doesn’t bother either of you, but it’s what I want to do.”
“As you please. Goodness knows, it hardly matters if my brother is an illustrator, given my stepmother is a murderer.”
“Quite,” Annabel said. “I think we have all the family scandal we’ll ever require.”
“It’ll go away,” Alec assured them. “Lord Moreton became an earl because one of his predecessors was a bigamist and the next heir was murdered, and nobody holds that against them. If anyone looks askance at us for what the Duke and Duchess did, that just shows they’re a person we can do without.”
“Well said.” George leaned forward to give Alec’s knee a nudge. “By the way, talking of the Moretons...”
Oh God. Alec had a feeling he’d be unpicking the tangle he’d made for months. “Don’t listen to the gossip. Penny’s lovely but she’s far too young to marry, as her mother has very firmly said, and I don’t think it would be fair to bring anyone into the family under these circumstances. Which...what’s your Henry going to think about all this, Annabel?”
“We’ll find out,” Annabel said. “If my fiancé wants a girl whose stepmother isn’t being arrested for murder, that’s up to him. It’s not my fault, and I’d rather know now if he’s not prepared to stick out a bit of trouble.”
“Good for you,” Alec said. “He’s an idiot if he doesn’t. And Melissa?”
George winced. “Melissa wrote to me to say that she feels she’s now fulfilled the ‘for worse’ as well as ‘for poorer’ part of her vows and she’d rather like the ‘for better’ and ‘for richer’ to start soon. She’s a wonderful woman,” he added hastily. “I suppose you’re right, Alec, and Father will stand by her?” George never used the Duchess’s name or title if he could avoid it. “Presumably he’ll be called as a witness?”
